“Who are you? What do you want here? Come forward!” Father Yánaros called out and drew back.
The old women rolled off the side pews and fell in a heap on the slate floor, clinging to the edges of the Bier. The priest bent over them and brought the candle to their faces, one by one; what bitterness, what poison-filled lips, how empty their eyes were, empty from the tears!
These are the faces of Greece, Father Yánaros thought, shuddering, these are the mothers …
And suddenly, as he watched these five bereaved women, they seemed to be the five great Hellenic mothersthe Roumeliote, the Macedonian, the Epirote, the Moraitian, and the noble mother of the islands.
“What do you want here in Castello?” he asked, disturbed. “Whom do you seek? Who are you?”
They all began to talk at once, to scream, to beat their breasts.
“I don’t understand a thing! What is all this noise? Speak, one at a time.”
The oldest one rose to her knees and stretched her hand out to stop the others; her face was like stone. “Quiet,” she said, “I’ll speak; I, the oldest.”
She turned to the priest. “We are all mothersour sons are in the war; some are in the valley, others in the hills; all of us have at least one dead. I’m old Chrystal from Chalika. What’s happened to you, Father Yánaros, that you don’t recognize me? Your mind is somewhere elsestill on the blasphemies.”
“I was not blaspheming; no, I was not; you should weigh your words; I was not cursing, I was praying. That’s how I pray to GodI don’t have to give explanations to anyone!”
He walked over to the candlestand and placed the candle on it, then he turned to the old women; his voice had softened now. “I bow my head and worship your pain, mothers of Greece,” he said. “Forgive me, my mind took long to return to earth and recognize you. But now it is here, it has left the flaming heavens, where I was talking to the Pancreator, and I welcome all of you, each one separately. Welcome, Kyra Chrystal, bereaved mother from Chalika; welcome Kyra Marigo from Prastova; and you, too, Kyra Christina from Mangano; and your graciousness Kyra Despina from Croustallo; and you, old Zafiro from Chrysopighi. Welcome to the house of the crucified Lord. What do you want? What are your grievances? I’m listening.”
“They’ve taken our homes, Father Yánaros,” old Chrystal groaned. “They’ve chased us out of our villages, both the blackhoods and the redhoods; they’re killing our husbands; we wan-der from cave to cave, hungry, coldwhere can we turn? At whose feet should we fall? How will this tragedy end? The villages sent us to ask you, Father; you speak with God; you are the voice of Godhis ears, his eyeshere in these wild, dry hills; you should know!”
“Help us, Father!” The others screamed and got up on their knees. “You’re the people’s last hope.”
Father Yánaros paced up and down the church; he stood be-fore the iconostas and looked at Christ, but he did not see Him; his mind drifted far away, over murky waters. Suddenly the
church seemed very narrow to himas though the walls would collapse if he stretched his arms. “God has placed all the heavy burdens on my shoulders,” he murmured. “Hold on, poor Father Yánaros!” He bent over the kneeling women; one by one he took them by the hand and helped them to their feet.
“Each one of you,” he said, “has a dead man in the courtyard of your house; but I have thousands in mine, thousands, wrapped in black and red flags. No, not in my courtyard, but in my guts; I can’t walk any longerI stumble. And no matter what corpse I look at, I see my face, because they are all my children.”
“Help us, Father!” the old women shouted again. “What shall we do? How will this tragedy end? Do you have a way of saving us, Father Yánaros? That’s why we came. If God has enlightened you, tell us, so we can go back to those who sent us; we’re in a hurry!”
“I’m in a hurry, too!” the priest shouted, and as he said this, he felt the hours passing and realized that he had little time. He had made his decision; yes, he was in a hurry. He looked at the old women, who had taken hold of the Bier and had begun to scream again.
“Get uplet go of the Bier; stand on your own feet! Aren’t you tired of weeping? God abhors weeping; man’s tears can turn water mills, but they cannot move God. Wipe your eyes, go back to your caves, call a meeting of the people; open your mouths and shout, ‘This is what Father Yánaros from Castello advises; there are three roads that can lead us to freedom God, our nation’s leaders, and the people. God is out, and you may as well accept it. He does not interfere in our business; He gave us a brain, He gave us freedom, He washed His hands of us!’
“Does He hate us? Doesn’t He want us? Or does He love us so much that He torments us? I don’t know; I’m only a man a sinner; I cannot know the secrets of God. I know only one thing for a fact; that this road is closedit’s a dead end.” He was silent; the votive lamps sputtered; the oil was almost gone. Father Yánaros turnedthe face of Christ had clouded. A heavy weight fell over the old man’s chest, but he did not move toward the sanctuary to get the oil container and refill the lamps.
The first old woman tugged at the ends of the priest’s robe. “The second road, Father?” she asked. “Advise us, tell us what it is. Explain to us in simple words, so we can understand we’re uneducated women.”
“The second road is our nation’s leaders, damn them! All of themall the leaders! I don’t make any distinctions. I’m neither a red nor a black; tell them I am Father Yánaros who speaks with God and who would never condescend to worship cowards. And if you were to tear my heart open, you would find Greece therethe whole of Greeceas it is on the maps that hang in the schoolrooms; she lies from one end of my heart to the other, coursing through my blood. Greece! Tell them this, do you hear?”
“We hear, we hear you, Father,” the mothers replied. “Go on, and do not be angry with us; the second road?”
“The second road, too, is closed. Not one leader, either red or black, has the whole of Greece in his heart; all of them have her dividedthe criminals have cut her in two, as if she were not alive. And each piece has gone mad and wants to eat the other. Kings, politicians, officers, bishops, leaders in the hills, captains in the valley, all of them, all of them have gone mad! They’re wild, hungry wolves, and we, the people, are the meat; they see us as meat and they devour us.”
He paused again, panting, as though he were climbing a cliff-ridden hill; he sighed.
“Eh, how wonderful it would be,” he murmured, “how comforting it would be for me if I also were blinded; I would join the army, too, either right or left, and have thousands of other blinded ones, behind and around me, and I’d be certain that we were on God’s side and that our enemies were on the devil’s. And I would gloat over the dead Greeks and say, ‘Glory to God, there are fewer bolsheviks now.’ Or: ‘Glory to God, there are fewer fascists now.’ But now I stand alone, deserted, and no matter whose corpse I see, my heart aches; because I see a part of Greece rotting.”
He was silent again, lost in his thoughts. The veins in his temples and in his neck puffed out, and bloodstained Greece unfolded before his eyes.
But the first woman stretched her hand out again and tugged at his sleeve. “The third roadthe third road, Father?”
“What third road? There is no third road! It hasn’t opened yet. We have to open it with our labor, pushing onward to make it a road. And who are the ‘we’? The people! This road begins with the people, goes ahead with the people, and ends with the people. Many times lightning tears through my mind. ‘Who knows,’ I say, ‘perhaps God is pushing us to the edge of this tragedy to force us to open this third roadwhether we want to or notto save ourselves.’ Mothers, I don’t know what stand to take, how to judge. But if you ask my heart, it says that this is the reason, this is what God wants. ‘Grow up,’ He tells us. ‘Don’t keep hanging from my coattails like children; stand up and walk alone!’”
The old women did not quite understand all that the priest had said, but their
hearts calmed down a little; they tied their black kerchiefs tightly; they covered their brows, their chins, their ears, their mouths; they composed themselves for the trip.
But old Kyra Chrystal lingered. The priest’s words had warmed her heart, but her mind was still in the dark.
“So?” she said and waited, her eyes on the priest.
“So now the moon will come out; take to the road, call your fellow villagers and tell them what Father Yánaros of Castello advises: Tomorrow, before high noon, all of you, along with your families, gather here in Castello; God has entrusted me with a secret. Whether I understood it or not, we shall seel But no other road exists. Go, with my blessings.”
He raised his hand and blessed the five kerchiefed heads; then he unlocked the door.
“With the blessings of God and our country,” he said and made the sign of the cross over the heads of the old women.
He stood at the threshold of the church and looked at the mothers, walking one behind the other along the wall, and disappearing. The moon rose from behind the rocky hill; the air smelled of decay.
“Poor Greece,” the priest murmured, watching the mothers disappear among the rocks, “poor unfortunate Greece, in her black kerchief.”
11
THE MOON ROSE in the sky and descended to earth; the demolished houses of the village shone quietly, happily, as though they were still sheltering the embracing couples. And the jackals had arrived; they wandered through the ruins, licking their chops.
Unable to sleep, two old men who had lost their minds from fear and hunger stumbled, singing, among the rubble. It was an old song, from the days of their youth, which spoke of love and death. Occasionally they would stop, embrace, and burst into laughter.
The moonlight, silent and pale, entered the latticed window of Father Yánaros’ cell; it flooded the Second Coming with sil-ver, and on the wall it lit up the crown of flames worn by St. Constantine, and the burning coals beneath his feet; but the saint was invisible.
Father Yánaros sat on the edge of his cot and rested his heavy head against the wall.
“Lord,” he murmured, “thank you for this bitter cup you have given me again today; I don’t know why You treat those who love You so cruelly, but I have enough faith to believe that whatever You do, You do for our own good, regardless of whether we understand it or not. What audacity for man to want to understand Your actions, Lord! Forgive us; it is not man who questions, my Lord. It is not man, but Satan, who
hovers over our heads and questions, questions continuously, in-cessantly. Our heart does not question, it has faith, it is certain. Night has fallen, it covers the world; another full day, praise God, a very tiring one; I am exhausted. And I still have work to do, difficult work, this night. You said I am free to do as I choose, so, then, I will do as I choose; I’m going up to the hill.”
He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep, to gather strength before beginning the uphill climb; he waited and waited. But the an-gel of sleep would not come. Beneath his closed eyelids passed the Passions of Christ together with the passions of man, and suddenly his mind drifted far away, to another Good Friday, a sunlit day when he, with pouch over his shoulder, roamed in search of a nest for his soul. Tall monasteries, like fortresses! Matins, beautiful hymns, monks of all sortswell-fed, ill-fed, ascetics and hypocritesthe Holy Mount; and on the peak of this mount, God-trodden, touching the sky, the snow-capped Athos.
How he remembered it all! Nothing had faded from his mem-ory; he saw the altar clearly, where the fathers had lined up after matins, to eat a piece of dry bread. A long, narrow hall, the murals peeling on the walls were moldy from time and dampness. The air smelled of boiled cabbage and of sourness.
A swallow entered from the open window and fluttered over the bowed heads of the monks. It recognized each one of them; they were the same monks as last year, a bit older, a bit paler; Manasses, Joachim, Gabriel, Melchizedek, Benedictusall of them, all of them were there, not a single one was missing. The bird was pleased, and it fluttered gaily, tweeting over the head of the abbot, longing to pluck out a hair of his white beard to strengthen its nest, but as it opened its beak, fear overcame it; it rushed for the open window, toward the light, and disappeared.
Not one monk raised his eyes to look at the bird; over forty of them were crowded at the long, narrow monasterial table, bent and grimacing as they chewed their beans and olives without much appetite. The waiter moved silently about, distribut-ing the wheat bread. Today was Good Friday; the monks sighed as they counted the hours until the Resurrection; when would
it come, dear God? A small monk who had climbed high on the pulpit was reading from the Passion Gospels. He was round and pale, and his voice had still not settled at its proper level no longer a boy’s, not yet a man’s; he crowed hoarsely: “They climbed, they climbed Golgotha; Christ in the front, bent from the weight of the cross; it was very heavy, you see, the sins of the world had fallen upon it. They climbed, they climbed, and be-hind them was the Virgin Mary, who beat her breasts and lamented. And others, thousands and thousands of women, mourned after the Virgin Mother; the whole world’s mothers, and thousands upon thousands of eyes cried, and lips moaned, and hands raised to the heavens and motioned to the angels to descend. And suddenly there was a great silence, followed by a heart-rending cry that came from the insides of the earth: ‘Do not cry, Holy Mother, take courage; take courage, Holy Mother, so the world may take courage, too.’ “
The neophyte reader crowed hoarsely as he went on with the terrible plight; and the dawn began to break. The lead dome of the church shone as though it were made of silver, and a large domesticated blackbird perched on the edge of the well and began to whistle the hymn which the monks had taught him. The sound of cackling partridges from the deep ravine rang throughout the monastery.
Father Yánaros, who was seated at the end of the table, raised his eyes; he looked at the monks from one end of the table to the other; his eyebrows knitted in anger. He stretched his neck to observe them, one by one, and he looked at each face with compassion and disgust. They were old and half-witted, cowardly, doubting gluttons. Is that, then, what the holy monastic life did to them? They had all paled and rotted from the dampness; their hands and feet were eaten away, nothing was left but the seven holes in each of their faceseyes, mouth, nostrils, ears. Or could it be that the Last Supper had come down from the wall where it was painted, peeling from age, and the Apostles now sat, worried and silent, waiting … What are they waiting for? Whom are they waiting for? Why are they looking toward the door? Where is Christ?
The smell from the damp ravine floated through the window; the first songbirds awoke, the cocks in the courtyard crowed,
and from a distance came the gentle, sweet sound of the cuckoo.
Father Yánaros’ temples felt refreshed; he closed his eyes, and that small voice was heard again: “The cursed gypsies have raised their hammers; they were ordered to make three nails, but they made five, and they began to nail Christ to the cross. At the first blow of the hammer, the heavens shook; at the sec-ond, angels descended from heaven carrying clean sheets and perfumes and golden jugs of rosewater to wash the wounds; at the third stroke, the Virgin Mother fainted and with her, the world, and darkness fell …”
Father Yánaros kept his eyes closed; he felt the pain, as though nails were being hammered into his own hands and feet; he rested his head against the wall on the half-peeled painting of the Last Supper. A white dog with pale blue spots was painted at their feet; the dog was licking a bone. The altar, the monks, the monastery disappeared; Mount Athos disappeared. Father Yánaros stood at the foot of the cross and looked up; he stared, and the blood trickled, and Christ fixed his eyes upon him and smiled.
Father Yánaros let out a cry; he felt faint; this was all that he could remember now. Unable to see the young monk who was reading any longer, he jumped up in terror and stretched out his hand toward the pulpit. “Don’t desert Christ on the cross,” he shouted. “Hurry
and get on to the Resurrection.”
He heard voices and confusion outside his cell; people rushed back and forth shouting in the courtyard; many hands began to knock on his door. Father Yánaros opened his eyes, the Holy Mount had disappeared and a crowd had gathered in the road; he could hear his name clearly now. He jumped up, opened the door and as he stood barefoot on the threshold, his hair spilling over his shoulders, he spread out his arms to the right and left, blocking anyone from entering. A large group of men and women had gathered, and their faces glowed wildly in the light of the moon.
“Eh, Father Yánaros,” one of them shouted; it sounded like the shrill voice of old man Mandras. “Eh, Father Yánaros, what’s all this again? Aren’t you going to ring the bell? Go on, open up the church!”
“Quiet, quiet! Stop shouting!” the priest replied. “There is no vigil tonight, and there will be no Resurrection tomorrow. Go back to your homes! Christ will lay in His Bier as long as you continue killing one another, fratricides!”
“What’s that?” “What’s that?” “Mercy on us, Lord!” Frantic voices shouted among the crowd. “Have you ever heard of such a thing in all of Christendom?” “Aren’t you afraid of God?”
“Greece is being crucified; you’re crucifying her, Iskariotes, and as long as Greece is being crucified, so will Christ. As long as you kill one another, you criminals, He will not rise from the dead. Not in Chalika, or in Prastova, or in Castello; nowhere in these hills where my vestments empower me shall I resurrect Him!”
The Fratricides Page 17