It took me aback that she called me ‘sir’. She did not say ‘father’, and she no longer addressed me with deference, as she used to do. Had Martha told her what happened between us? Why was the old woman complaining now about the hardships of life and their dire circumstances? How dare she come to see me before sunrise to ask me about something like this?
‘Go back home, aunt, and I’ll speak to Martha about this in the afternoon.’
I wanted some time to think and I did not want to give the old woman the impression that I was upset. I went straight to the big church to join the other monks in preparing for Sunday prayers. Before entering the church I looked over towards the ruined gateway and saw the old woman sitting in her spot and the guard who came and knocked on my door climbing the hill again. I stood there a moment, watching from afar. I saw the guard come up to where the old woman was and sit on a rock, where I had just been sitting.
From over the stone wall of the monastery wall I saw them talking, but I could not hear what they were saying because of the distance. The way the guard was sitting was striking. He was speaking as though he were resuming a conversation which had been interrupted, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, waving his hands in a way that suggested he thought that what he was saying was important. The old woman was nodding as though she agreed with what he was saying. I was about to go out and find out what it was all about but I heard footsteps on the gravel, coming towards me.
‘Good morning, Hypa.’
It was Pharisee with his podgy face, which was now even podgier, and with red eyes that suggested that he had not slept. I rebuked him gently for his sudden departure the previous night, and he said he was sorry but he had been upset. I asked him whether he was ill and, grumbling, he replied, ‘On the contrary, I have all the symptoms of the diseases of the spirit!’ We went on with heavy steps and entered the big church by the inner door. A sense of apprehension hung over the place and was evident on the faces of all the monks.
After the prayers were over and the visitors had gone, I went down to Martha’s cottage and called out for her. She joined me at the edge of the cultivated land. It was quieter there and a better place for us to sit because no one could see us. I looked into her face at length, trying to discover what her innocent features were concealing, but I could see nothing. I asked her about the guard who had been talking to her aunt in the morning and I begged her to speak honestly and tell me what was really happening.
‘He wants to marry me,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘Just as people get married, Hypa. He says that he came only two months ago and will stay here for years, and there’s nothing to stop him marrying. He wants to live with us in the cottage or rent a house for us in the village.’
‘But...’
‘I don’t want him, Hypa. I want you. And if you abandon me I shall go back to Aleppo, because living there, though hard, is easier than here.’
‘And who told your aunt that the hymns in the monastery church had been postponed?’ I asked.
‘The Roman guard who asked me to marry him. He’s of Greek origin, in his thirties and his name is...’
‘I don’t want to know.’
I felt great anguish, and Martha was looking absentmindedly towards the distant plains. After a long moment of silence, Martha suddenly stood up to sit down beside me. When she put her hand on my shoulder, I looked around for fear there might be someone to see us. There was no one around us, just a mountain dove pecking at the ground with its beak.
From inside came a whisper, pressing me to put my hand on her thigh and lose myself with her in erotic passion, then keep her by my side for the rest of my life. It was the same whispering voice that I came to know several weeks later. It was the voice of Azazeel, alluring me with a call from deep within me: ‘Don’t lose Martha the way you lost Octavia twenty years ago.’
‘That was not my voice, Hypa. That was the call of your own soul.’
‘Azazeel. Don’t try to confuse me. Let me finish what I’m writing. I don’t have much time and I am sick at heart, because I shall leave in a few days.’
‘Good, I’ll shut up, and shut up completely. But it wasn’t my voice.’
Close to two months have now passed since I last sat with Martha, at the edge of the land planted with seeds. It was afternoon and at the time I did not succumb to the call that came from inside me, tempting me to lay my hand on her and taste the pleasure of love. Instead I was thinking what that would lead to. I would become more attached to her, and she to me, whereas I was supposed to have severed relations with the superficialities of this world, let alone relations with a woman.
But Martha was not like other women, she was more like a child or an angel. How could I leave her to the embraces of this Roman guard of Greek origin, whose name I did not know? How could he understand her as I understood her, how could he love her as I loved her? Would she warm to him one day and whisper her songs to him in bed? Martha was not like other women, but if she went to sing in the inns of Aleppo, amidst the villainous and drunken Arab and Kurdish merchants, she would soon become a fallen woman, embraced and passed around from one itinerant man to another. Martha had spent years singing there and she had told me nothing of what happened to her in those times, and I had not asked her. Or perhaps her aunt tricked me all along, to make me run off with her and marry her. How could I marry her, when I had spent my whole life as a monk? The twenty years I had spent in monasteries I would offer as a dowry to a woman in her twenties, and then in ten years’ time I would be an old man in his fifties and she would be a beautiful woman in her thirties. She would be interested in men, covetous eyes would gaze at her and maybe men would reach out to touch her. Would I spend the last years of my life protecting and restraining her? Would I end up guarding a woman, after a life of so many changes that I no longer know how exactly to describe myself? Am I a physician or a monk, consecrated or impenitent, Christian or pagan?
Martha was sitting next to me that day, but all these thoughts made me forget that I was beside her. After a long silence, she touched the back of my hand with the tips of her fingers and broke my train of thought. Speaking with a charming twang, she said, ‘Hypa, take me with you to your home country. Let’s get married and stay there for the rest of our lives.’
‘Is it true what your aunt said, that you plan to sing in Aleppo?’ I asked.
‘She wants that, but I want only you. So let’s leave this place.’
‘How, Martha, how? The people in my country are mostly Christian.’
‘What does that matter to us? We’re also Christian,’ she said.
‘In the religion of Christ we are forbidden to marry.’
‘Forbidden!’
‘Yes, Martha, forbidden. In the Gospel according to Matthew, it says: “Anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”’
‘Commits adultery? So what did we do in the cottage yesterday? Did we not commit adultery there?’
Martha slipped away from my side, as the soul slips out of an emaciated body weakened by chronic ailments. I did not look towards her as she walked away to the cottage and I did not move from the spot until Deacon came and summoned me to the abbot’s room. He said the abbot wanted me urgently. My legs were numb and I almost collapsed to the ground when I tried to stand, but I held on to Deacon’s arm. We walked up to the monastery from the path that passes uphill of the cottage, so that I would not meet Martha’s old aunt. I was exhausted. When I went in to see the abbot, beads of sweat were streaming from my forehead, running into the folds of my clothing like trickles of rain.
SCROLL TWENTY-SEVEN
The Iron Rod
I went into the abbot’s room through the half-open door and found him deep in prayer. When he had finished he told me he had been praying for Nestorius. He also said he was going to call on the monastery people and all the Christians living in the area to fast for a week, with constant masses and prayers, starting from that night, to solicit divine grace
on behalf of Christians and to relieve the distress of the great churches. I was surprised at what he said, but then he told me he had heard that Bishop Cyril, the bishop of Jerusalem and a group of other bishops and priests had decided to convene an ecumenical council the next day, chaired by Cyril, and Nestorius did not plan to attend.
My head spun for a moment and my breathing faltered. The abbot said that Bishop John of Antioch, Nestorius’s ally in his ordeal, had sent a message to the bishops and priests gathered in Ephesus, telling them he would be a few days’ late because the journey was dangerous. ‘The trip is really perilous these days, because the sea is rough and the land route is not safe. Bandits are active and unrest prevails everywhere,’ he said.
I began to sweat more profusely, had mysterious tremors and felt dizzy. I did not ask the abbot to elaborate but he stressed that everyone was apprehensive about what might happen in Ephesus, and that he personally was frightened. I was so shocked by what he said that I could not answer, and I was fully convinced that the horror of the storm was on its way, because I had lived in Alexandria for two years and in those days long ago I learnt how storms can blow up. I did not ask the abbot how the news had reached him but I did ask him if these reports of his had been confirmed. He nodded sadly and said he wanted me to deliver to the bishop of the parish in Aleppo a letter about what was happening in Ephesus.
When the abbot uttered the word Aleppo, my mind began to wander and my head spun with questions: why was Aleppo suddenly closing in on me on all sides? The city was lying in ambush for me, ravaging me and sweeping me away, along with everything around me. Aleppo, the city of taverns, which called out to Martha, the city that obsessed her, and obsessed me. Aleppo, the parish in turmoil the more the fires raged in Ephesus. Or was it a message to Bishop John of Antioch? What was happening around me?
Suddenly the abbot stood up and said he would write his letter that evening and I could go off with it the next morning after mass. I asked leave to go to my room and join him an hour later in the church. When I went out into the courtyard the monks were busy preparing for something I could not make out. I did not speak to anyone on my way to my room and my legs would hardly carry me up the stairs. I shut the door to my room but I did not light the lamp. I sat in the darkness for a while, then lay on my back without spreading my arms along the floor. I closed my eyes and saw Martha, not smiling. I covered my face with my arms and I saw Octavia dying. Then I saw Nestorius walking along, his head bowed, surrounded by sullen soldiers. Then I saw him alone, on top of Mount Qusqam.
I sat up, filled with a fear the source of which I did not know. I asked myself: should I go to church now, to feel a little peace of mind? The night prayers must have started. Being in a group would relieve the anxiety, since nothing is more conducive to fear than being alone. Or should I go to Martha’s cottage nearby and mend what was broken in our relationship, then sleep on the floor under her bed? Does Martha sleep in the bed where we made love two days ago? Or does she lie on the floor like me? I don’t know much about her. I’ve never seen her from the inside. In fact I’ve never seen anything from the inside. I always skirt around the surface of things and never go deep. In fact I think I’m afraid of looking deep inside myself, yet I know the truth about my ambiguous self. Everything about me is ambiguous – my baptism, my being a monk, my faith, my poems, my medical knowledge, my love for Martha. I am one ambiguity after another, and ambiguity is the opposite of faith, just as Satan is the opposite of God.
I had a bad night and in the pitch dark I was tormented by strange impulsive thoughts. I would have liked to go to Martha’s cottage and slip into her arms, or climb up to the pulpit where the abbot gives his sermons to the people, spread my arms in the air, summon up my strength and fly off to Nestorius. He would be praying alone now and he would no doubt be pleased to see me. I would have liked to go back to being a child in the old days, with a mother other than the one I had, and another father like the one that was, a large family to be proud of me whenever I recited a new poem, two wives who loved me, one like Octavia and the other like Martha, or to be like the male mountain doves, simple and innocent, snatching a moment with whichever dove came close, then flying off with her.
These impulsive thoughts began to pull me towards the dark core that lies within the self, leaving me at the bottom of a deep chasm from which there was no return. I felt a chill deep in my bones. I tugged at the coarse tablecloth folded on the table and put it over my shoulders. I left my room and headed for the church, but I walked past it and did not go in. I went on with heavy steps towards the monastery gate. The stars in the sky showed that dawn was approaching, but the darkness enveloped the universe and enveloped me. None of the Roman guards were at the gate, not even their dog. I looked towards Martha’s cottage, haunted by impossible hopes and exaggerated fears.
I sat at the monastery gate a long while, plagued by thoughts, most of which I was too weak to resist so I let them sweep me along. I set sail to distant worlds, beyond this world. I went back deep into past times when human suffering was unknown, times before the beginning of creation as told in the Book of Genesis. Who existed before mankind existed on earth? God, the angels, Satan? What did they all do before we existed and they had us to worry about?
The first thread of the light of dawn appeared and at that moment I felt for the first time that I was not alone. I felt that someone could see me, from where I did not know. I don’t mean God, but someone else close to where I was, hidden somewhere near at hand. I looked around and pricked up my ears in the hope of finding something to confirm my feeling or belie it. I told myself it was just one of those delusions that insomniacs have after long sleepless nights. There might be a fox or a wild rabbit nearby, or a thief who had discovered that the monastery guards were asleep most of the time.
I picked up a stone from the ground and threw it to the right, then threw other small stones in all directions. Nothing moved and all I heard was the sound of the stones as they fell on the gravel. So it was my mind playing tricks, the effect of sleeplessness and fear of the hidden unknown. I stood up and I felt the same thing following me. I stopped in the middle of the empty courtyard, and it stopped. I walked on in trepidation, and it walked on too. I shuddered inside.
The interior door of the church was closed, so I walked until the mysterious building stood in front of me, with the monks’ rooms on my right. I hurried to the right and climbed the stairs to this room of mine. I closed the door firmly behind me and stayed in the darkness. I told myself: the sun will soon rise so there’s no need to light the lamp, it would be best to rest a little because it will be a long day. Between snatches of sleep and moments of wakefulness, I felt that whatever had been with me was still there, but I was no longer afraid of sensing it, as I had been. I was sure I had closed the door and that I was alone in the room, but sure also that there was something close by me.
‘Hypa.’
I heard the deep call and a sudden fear swept over me. Goosebumps appeared on my arms and a shudder shook me, centred in my head. The voice that called me was audible but where did it come from? It did not come from anywhere in particular, but rather from every direction.
‘Hypa, can’t you see me?’
I looked around and could not see anything. I looked inside myself and through the filters of fear and worry I saw a pale face. Was it the young man I met on the outskirts of Sarmada? Or was it that elegantly dressed and wily man I met on the road back to Assiut from Mount Qusqam? He had the same eyes as the man in Sarmada and the same ironic smile as the man on the road. So I was right to be wary of them. The abbot did not believe me when I told him I had met Satan in broad daylight. Satan. Let it be, what could he do with me?
My last question to myself relieved some of my fears and brought along behind it many other questions: ‘Where could you take me, Satan, you wretch? Do you want to undermine my faith in Christ? Or haven’t you realized that I no longer believe in the same way as I did? Will you tempt me with sed
uctive women? Don’t you know what happened long ago with Octavia and what is happening now with Martha? Or do you want to lure me on to the paths of heresy? What in the first place is the true faith, to which heresies might be the opposite? There could be no heresies if there were no orthodoxy. And what is orthodoxy? Is it what they decree in Alexandria, or what they believe in Antioch? Is it the faith of the early fathers, the pious and the venerated, or is it the pagan beliefs whose followers persecuted the early fathers, who then with time became pious and venerated?’
Questions without answers swirled inside me. ‘Is the true faith the faith of Cyril, or is it the faith of poor Nestorius, who will soon join those excommunicated before him – Paul of Samosata, Arius the exile, Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia. All the heretics here were revered there. All the patriarchs are discredited, except among their followers. Satan plays with everyone, so do you think he’s now trying to play with me? Is it not enough for him to play with those preparing for war in Ephesus? And that fire he is stoking in all the churches. He is never satisfied, can never make do with a single request. Why else would he be calling me now? Why is he always harassing me? Why did he pick a fight with me openly in Sarmada?’
His face was sharper in the darkness. I examined the features which had first appeared and found they had changed. It was no longer the elegantly dressed man with the leprous pock-marked face or the young man I had encountered. The face had become more delicate and smaller, and now looked more like Martha’s face than anything else. I stared and then it was completely Martha, with her sweet smile and her fine head leaning to the right as she spoke. I called her softly but the face clouded over and vanished, just as trails of smoke break up. The features lost their shape and the image of Martha was gone. I was confused and after wandering around blindly a long while a deep sleep came over me and I no longer noticed my surroundings.
Azazeel Page 31