Azazeel

by Ziedan, Youssef

  On the third day after the doves landed I was sitting at the wall overlooking the northern plains. We had finished the morning prayer and I had no desire to go to the library. I stayed a good time watching a group of doves flying between the columns and the walls, sometimes landing on the ground and picking up with their beaks whatever they found fit to eat. I was sitting still and the doves grew accustomed to my presence and were coming close, just as the birds grew accustomed to the flute of King David and landed around him. After a time I could tell the male doves from the females, and I noticed that they all showed constant goodwill towards each other and did not lay special claim to one mate rather than any other. All doves like each other. The male ruffles up his feathers and walks around a nearby female nodding his head, and if she stays still he mounts her, and otherwise he flies off to another in the hope that she will stay still. Meanwhile the first female waits for another male to come hovering around her and if he pleases her she acts willing by moving close to him and not flying off, which amounts to permission for him to mount her. Doves copulate often and all day long never cease from courting and coupling, especially in the afternoon and shortly before sunset. I was sitting happily at the wall with the doves around when Pharisee appeared from afar, with his usual rolling gait. He sat down near me and started to pick up pieces of stone to throw at the doves and drive them away from us. I asked him what he was doing and he said angrily that the doves covered the monastery with excrement and the constant cooing of the males disturbed people asleep at dawn. I gave him a sceptical look, unsure if he was telling the truth, and he added, as though he were announcing a secret, that the doves aroused the passions and induced people to commit sins, so people should not look at them if they wanted to be godly. Pharisee’s ideas are as strange as he is.

  The fourth day after the doves landed they left as suddenly as they had come. The monks lamented their departure, as I did after listening to them for the past three days. I spent the night in the library and in the first part of the night I had dreams full of doves. In the second half of the night I lit a candle, as though I was going to look at the books, but my mind was wandering far away, assailed by questions without answers. Where did the doves go when they left us? Were they really a sign to us and a portent from heaven, or was it just a coincidence? Will the doves come back after a time, or was this an event which will not recur? Why don’t people learn from doves how to live in peace? The dove is a simple bird and pure in spirit. Jesus the Messiah once said, ‘Be as innocent as doves.’ The dove is peaceful because it has no claws, and people should renounce the weapons and military equipment which they hold. The dove does not eat more than it needs and does not save food, so people too should give up hoarding supplies and stashing away resources. Doves live a life of perfect love: the males do not distinguish between a beautiful female and an ugly female, as people do. As soon as a dove reaches the age to fly it no longer recognizes any father or mother but joins the other doves in a perfect community where selfishness and individualism are unknown. Why don’t people live in this way, reproducing in peaceful groups, as was the case with humans in the beginning? All would live as one, living a wholesome life, then die without drama, as other creatures die. Men and women would choose partners to suit them, to live together lovingly for a time, then part if they wished and join up with someone else if they wanted. Everyone would treat the young as the offspring of all, and women would be like doves, asking the males only for courtship and brief encounters, because women...

  ‘Hypa, what you are writing is incompatible with your monastic status.’

  ‘Leave me alone, Azazeel. You invited me to write, so let me write what I please.’

  ‘But you are going too deep. You still have much you were going to tell, and time is short.’

  ‘You’re right, you wretch.’

  One hot afternoon in the months of autumn in the year 430 of the Nativity I was watching the clouds as usual, trying to decipher the symbols or bring to light the hidden message within me, based on what I could see in the shapes. I heard voices coming from the direction of the monastery gate, so I rose from my usual sitting place on the dilapidated wall which overlooks the broad northern prospect, and crossed the open space to see what the hubbub was about. Halfway up the slope which climbs to the gate from the plains below, near where there is a ramshackle cottage which has been abandoned for years, there were two men, two mules and two women, one of them old and the other in colourful clothes but whose features I could not make out well.

  When they had unloaded the mules, the men went off with the animals and the women stayed behind, struggling to get the luggage into the cottage. Were they going to live there, I wondered. As I thought the question over the priest came by on his way out of the monastery. He lives at the bottom of the hill in one of those small houses built around the hill and he was bound to know some of the story. When I asked him, he told me that two women had come to live in the cottage, after the abbot gave them permission out of sympathy for their circumstances. He added, ‘The old woman is ill, so I expect she will come to see you for treatment.’

  At the dinner table the abbot was in his usual place reading psalms to us. He ate only a piece of dry bread with us and then thanked the Lord. He gestured to me and when I came up next to him he leant towards me and said in a whisper that a small lyre would arrive on Saturday from Aleppo, and that he would assemble some deacons and a girl with a good voice for me to teach them some hymns they could sing at mass on Sundays, as they do in big churches. ‘You could arrange some psalms for them, or some short verses from your poems, or some of Bishop Rabbula’s poetry, because people love to hear music during mass,’ he added.

  I nodded in agreement and I liked the idea, because I am by nature inclined towards music and chanting. I almost told the abbot that he was right when he decided to go ahead with his plan. Then I had second thoughts and said, ‘Reverend father, as for musical instruments, didn’t John Chrysostom forbid the use of them in churches?’

  ‘That was forty years ago, or more, my child,’ he said, ‘and he did not say they should be banned, but that the Lord held them in contempt and liked to be glorified by human voices. Our brothers in Edessa and Nusaybin studied the matter at several synods and came to the conclusion that it is permissible to use musical instruments in churches.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but what about the girl singing in church?’

  ‘She will come in from the outer door and she will chant standing outside the chancel, behind the deacons.’

  I have always believed that music is a holy and heavenly art, which we can use either to chasten the soul or to arouse the passions. In my childhood I was fascinated by the pictures of musicians on the walls of the temples in my home country. I would say to myself, ‘If they hadn’t dedicated music to worship they would not have depicted the musicians on the temple walls.’ But I did not talk about the subject at all with any fellow Christians. And now the days turn and the gifts of the Lord fall in our hands without any effort on our part, so we take pleasure in music. I asked the abbot for permission to go to the library but first I told him, ‘Tonight I shall set about composing a chant, an amalgam between the psalms of David and some refined monastic ideas.’

  ‘Under the protection of the Lord. Wait, my child. The chant will be in Syriac, because it’s the majority language here,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, holy father, of course.’

  I crossed the courtyard from the refectory to the library, full of enthusiasm and pleasure. The light of the autumn moon carpeted the ground and reflected off the white pebbles, which looked like jewels strewn among the sand in the courtyard. The night breeze was refreshing and my spirit leapt, soaring in exultation. My heart pounded as in my childhood when my father pulled up his nets from the water of the Nile, or when my sick uncle’s wife called me to dinner, or when I left Naga Hammadi and headed for Akhmim. In fact our life is nothing but such rare moments of pleasure.

  When I went into the
library an idea occurred to me. I would dispense with the music of the lyre or give it a limited role in the chant by arranging the music to be sung by the boys and the girl with the melodious voice. In that way I would avoid as far as possible the objections of those who disapproved of musical instruments, and I would combine the lines of my poetry, which the girl would sing, with the psalm which the boys would chant. I would compose my chants in the fifth metre under the Syriac system, which includes the pentameters and hexameters which I favour more than any other. That night I said to myself, ‘I shall fill the big monastery church and all the churches around with spiritual chants that soar to the kingdom of heaven.’

  I sat at the long table and lit the lantern, then scanned the shelves of books around me, wrapped up in my enthusiasm. I went to the shelves on the right and took out the Syriac translation of the psalms. When I opened it, my eyes fell by chance on Psalm 16, and I wrote the first line of it on the parchment, then added to it, until I had this:

  Preserve me, O God: for in Thee do I put my trust.

  Bless the people of the church, for they have no refuge but Thee,

  Fill their hearts with a joy which Thou alone can grant,

  Preserve me, O God: for in Thee do I put my trust.

  On the straight path which Thou hast traced I walk.

  In the lives of the saints and martyrs I seek guidance,

  And return to the soil from whence I came,

  Then live the life that knows no death.

  Preserve me, O God: for in Thee do I put my trust.

  I spent the whole night composing and amending the words, driven by unbounded enthusiasm. Shortly before dawn I was inspired to write other lines, with words that were elegant, refined and precise in meaning, words that had never occurred to me before. I intended to compose music for the seven prayers and for the holy days, to make up a book of daily prayer, and write for the monks a wonderful hymn of a profound nature to be chanted by monks who pray constantly in their rooms. I told myself that in this special hymn I would put in words the most subtle secrets in the finest possible language. I would compose it in three movements – the first soft with few words, the second repetitive and full of phrases glorifying God, the third fast and joyful with melodies that take flight on the tiny wings of angels. I would divide my time between medicine and poetry, treating bodies with the former and souls with the latter, because the word can have an effect on man that powerful medicines do not have, since it has an eternal life which does not end with the death of the speaker.

  I did not go back to my room that night, but slept in the library, filled with a mysterious joy. The next day I missed the morning prayers in church and I had no appetite for breakfast, so I stayed in the library until midday. Pharisee came to check up on me. I reassured him and told him what I was doing, but he was not as delighted as I was. I asked him why and he said he did not like singing, especially from a girl. I felt sorry for him and I was about to say, ‘On the contrary, you like singing, you like doves, and you like women, but you are frightened of all that and you cannot bear liking these things, so you dismiss them to have an easy life.’

  I did not want to upset Pharisee by telling him what I really thought about his attitude, especially as he had complained to me that he suffered from constant insomnia. I took his pulse and it was irregular. I asked him about his bowel movements and he said he had constipation. I gave him a tiny amount of scammony powder, mixed with plenty of aniseed to loosen his bowels with one dose, and sedative and somniferous herbs to be drunk for one week after midnight prayers. This was the prescription I thought best for him.

  I went out with him to the big church and said the noon prayers with the monks. After that the abbot told me that the singing boys and the girl would come to the library the next day. He, too, had started calling it the library.

  The next day in the afternoon the clamour of the children put an end to the calm around me. They came with Deacon, who knocked lightly on the door, and when I opened it I found six boys and two girls with him, aged between seven and nine. That day they came with their families and they filled the place. Some of them played around, and some of them stared at me. They had bright faces with innocent expressions, for time had not yet diminished their capacity for innocent wonder. I sent off their parents with Deacon to the churchyard, and had the children stay behind. One of the mothers stayed standing and, without looking at her, I told her gently that she should wait for her son or daughter at the gate or in front of the church. She said that she was not mother to any of the children, nor to anyone else. ‘I’m the singer,’ she added tersely.

  I was shaken by what she said, or perhaps I was pleased, but at the time I did not want to show my pleasure nor that I was shaken. I called the boys. ‘Come inside, stand in a line, starting with the tallest.’ Then, without turning towards her, I said, ‘And you, my girl, stand on the side opposite them.’ The children lined up and organized themselves by height with a slight adjustment on my part. I asked each one to sing individually the first line of Psalm 16. Their voices were of varying quality, but overall they were acceptable. Children’s voices are by nature pleasant and clear. After I had finished with them I turned to the one who described herself as the singer. She was about twenty years old, as far as I could tell. I could not make out her face clearly because I do not look at women’s faces and take no interest in their appearance. It was her dress that drew my eyes to her, for it was an unusual style for these parts, but in any case modest and dignified.

  I looked down when I spoke to her, asking her to sing in a certain way the first and second lines of the hymn which I had composed. I read the lines to her with a melody which I made up, and she asked me if she could sing it with another church melody which she remembered, and I agreed. At the moment I raised my eyes to her face, she removed the headdress which hung down on her forehead, took two steps back, shut her eyes with matchless grace and lifted her face towards heaven. After a moment of silence and shyness, she sang. What a radiant voice I heard, descending serenely from the folds in the clouds! Her voice evoked the fragrance of rose bushes and the spirit of pure green meadows. She sang ‘And take pity on my weakness’ as though she were about to weep. Then she sang, ‘And I have no help other than Thee!’ I trembled inside as her lips quivered, as she strung out the words until they reached the highest heavens. Her singing was of a rare beauty.

  The children who were with us fell completely silent when she sang, absorbed in her singing, as though they had flown on the wings of the melody to some distant place, and I felt as though I were alone in the farthest corner of the vast universe. When I recall that moment now, I can feel her magical voice take me out of myself to a place beyond all things. The heavenly echo of it reverberates between the distant mountain tops and melts the heart between my ribs. My God!

  When she finished singing a deep silence reigned. I wanted to signal to her to sing again, in fact I wanted her to sing until the world ended and the Day of Judgement came, but the situation did not allow for that. While she was adjusting her head covering so that it again fell down over her forehead, it dawned on her that her voice was extraordinary and that the melody she had sung was finer than the one I had suggested. She also realized that I was taken by her singing, and entranced, and many other things. As for me, at that point I no longer knew anything.

  My eyes were fixed on her face until it struck me that this was most improper for me. Her face was small, rounded like a pear, and her fine features showed through her veil of thin black silk hanging down from her headdress. The headdress looked like a crown, only prettier, with delicate embroidery and at the start of its many pleats little coloured stitching. Her black velvet dress, full at the breast and tight at the waist, suggested a perfect figure. At the time I deceived myself, telling myself that her figure was no business of mine, perfect or not. What mattered was her rich voice which went so well with the hymns, for she had been trained to sing. Perhaps she had grown up close to a church or
a monastery and had taken part in a choir since her early childhood.

  When the abbot sent them some sweets, the children reverted to their boisterousness. I shared the sweets out among them, including the singing girl. I did not want to keep them too long on our first day, so I sent them all off after asking the Lord to bless them. I told them their singing was beautiful and that we would meet again the next afternoon, because the next day was Sunday and the monastery would be crowded with visitors in the morning. They gambolled out through the door and the girl walked after them with a striking dignity.

  As she passed by me, without looking towards her, I asked her, ‘Will you not tell me your name, good maid?’

  ‘I am no maid, father, and my name is Martha, an old word which means lady.’

  SCROLL TWENTY

  The Anxiety Nearby

  The night after I first saw Martha I had terrible insomnia and stayed awake till dawn. In the beginning I did not think much about her being the girl who was not a maid. It was her rich voice, and its resonance inside me, that caught my attention. I spent the night rephrasing some of the words to match the register of her voice and I tried to compose some new hymns especially compatible with its warmth and richness. In the depths of the night I was buffeted by many thoughts, hopes and anxieties. Would people come to mass to hear Martha? Would the monastery church be thronged with ordinary believers, and might her fame as a singer reach as far as Antioch and Constantinople? Was she perhaps married? What sort of man could bear to approach such beauty? What does she have to do with me? I have enough to keep me busy and fill my time with worries. How is the reverend Nestorius and what is he up to? Has Bishop Cyril gone easy on him, or is he planning something else to attack him with? I’ll write him a letter tomorrow and send it with the first traveller going to Constantinople. I’ll ask the abbot if he wants anything from Bishop Nestorius so that I can mention it in the letter. He’ll be delighted with the letter, because he knows that I am no longer in the habit of writing letters. I’ll write a wonderful hymn and dedicate it to him, and write it on the back of the letter. He’ll be pleased with it and one day he will come to visit the monastery and I will have it sung for him with Martha’s angelic voice. Martha – how old is that girl? And why did she tell me so firmly that she was not a virgin?