“What is happening to us?” they moaned to each other.
Excrement, urine and bile lay strewn haphazardly in the cabin. No one cared anymore to use the buckets, their minds a field of havoc. I packed the raw pieces of their innards into the buckets, feeling the familiar comfort of their stench relaxing me in between intervals of my own memory lapses.
#
It came again several times over. Each time we fought it off, our sharpened oars piercing through it and each time it claimed more members of our boat. The last time it came, the deck was full of children and elders. Our inattention to hygiene in wake of all that had happened had started to produce sores on the skin of the children. Three children were brought up at a time to stand in a large tub of salt water while water was poured over their bodies and a quick rag rubbed over them. The same was done for elders.
It was in this instance, when every child was on deck and running about naked glistening, salty and clean, and elders slowly being brought to the tub of water that the sweet stench of sweaty iron filled the air.
“It’s coming!” I yelled.
The children were rushed downstairs and the elders were carried one by one into the cabin below. Those on deck grabbed their makeshift weapons and readied themselves. A roar broke from the waters of the sea and rising once again in a pitiful wail was the creature framed by a tidal wave of water. Voices screamed from within the wave. Arms reached out and faces pressed forward, changing between expressions of grief and happiness.
Each face cried the name of a person on board and random limbs and fingers reached out, brushing up against our skin, attempting to grab us. Then, a woman’s face emerged, soft and flattened, beautiful almost. Staring down on the deck she wailed, “Grandmother!” and reached her arms out to an elder who had been left behind. The elder screamed up at the woman, sobs coming out of her chest in crests. “My child, my child!” she cried. Her arms reached out to the woman.
“No!” I yelled, running to block the girls’ descent.
“I want to go with her!” sobbed the elder.
The girl’s face flitted in and out of distortion until she looked just as she did when I last saw her. It was our second attempt. She had jumped, like me, like Khánh. The sea had grabbed her. I remember her face sinking below the water.
“Moi,” I said, “Moi was your name.”
She smiled then and it was neither unnatural nor terrifying. Before I could stop her, the elder jumped up and grabbed Moi, pulling her back onto the boat. Arms reached out to cling onto the elder. We pulled her back onto the deck but her hold on Moi was steadfast. She pulled until Moi fell onto the deck and behind her tumbled a line of people who had held on to Moi’s legs, and behind those others that had held onto each other’s limbs.
“Grab them! Grab them!” yelled the elder and she began reaching for the limbs that appeared from the creature, pulling at arms and hands. Her strength seemed amazing. One by one people tumbled, children, infants, adults, crying, smiling, relief thick in their voices.
I dropped my oar and began grabbing at arms and faces. Others starred at us in horror but when the bodies of people, naked and smiling, began to appear, we all began to pull. Oars were dropped. Knives were thrown into the sea and the boat became a clamoring of arms reaching out to grab at hands, fingers, toes, hair. I called out the names of my family.
Khánh!
Trúc!
Mother!
I heard myself echoed in the voices all around me as people began to yell out the names of loved ones they had lost. One by one they tumbled from the wave that hovered over our boat. Then a face emerged. A face I knew like the back of my hand. I grabbed her face. Khánh. My sister. She fell onto me, bursting into sobs, burying her face into my neck, her hair long and twining about her body.
#
From within the wave we had pulled out nearly a hundred people. We sat like sardines on the deck and in the cabin. In those moments, we forgot the void. We passed the candle back and forth identifying faces, calling out names. I sat staring at my brother and my sister as my mother held onto them both. Beyond them were the faces of people dear to me, faces I had passed every day in our village, faces I had convinced myself to forget because missing them was too painful. Voices continued forever into the darkness as people spoke, whispered, cried about a haven, the sea’s safe harbor.
How did it happen? That in this place the sea suddenly became the only solace for lost souls. Going back and forth between trying to catch glimpses of my family and the wavering movement of the candle, I curled my fingers into the sea. In the sheath of the darkness, I made my peace with her.
#
When the darkness parted, fading into the soft blush of dawn, the fear left as suddenly as it came, as if our involuntary journey had passed through a gate, our purpose met. All around me screams and yelps broke out. I knew the sea must be opening all around me. Her music began playing, drowned only by the cacophony of the passengers. It was the lapping sound that I heard first. Instantly, I drew my attention to the deck, focusing on the ragged worn lines of the wood as it trailed old stories. I drew down closer to it, squatting until all I could see was feet. I watched the interplay of small feet with big feet, heavy feet, tiny feet all walking, running, jumping, dancing.
A familiar hand rested on my back. Then a head, grey hair falling into my face, tears soaking warm on my torn shirt. She came into full view and I remembered how beautiful my mother was. Is. I wrapped myself around her, becoming a child again. I let myself cry, darkened her shirt with sobs for all those faces I did not see, those that were not returned to us, those not taken into the protection of the sea, like father. Her arms curled about my body and we clutched each other. Khánh and Trúc joined us, tangling their limbs about us.
Then a familiar sound reached my ears, halting my tears. We all heard it. It was another boat. We looked at each other, our eyes wide with excitement, then fear. But no, the ships of pirates are loud splashing taunts thrown flat against the sea, not round and curling like the soft gurgling sound of the large vessel. Mother stood up and we joined her. I expected to be curled into myself within an instant, dry heaving into the deck. But instead, waves of calmness washed through me. The sea, blue and green, wavering calmly, was winking at me, her arms spread and inviting all around me. And I was not afraid anymore.
Khánh and Trúc ran to the edge of the boat where they joined others who were waving and yelling at the huge vessel. It hovered above the water, barely touching the surface of the waves. Did anyone even notice that?
On board we could see the shadowed face of a person gazing down at us. Việt cộng? The thought entered my mind and stabbed at my chest threatening to cave it. The vessel descended and glided to rest beside us. For the first time, everyone on our fishing boat caught a clear glimpse of the woman on the vessel. Before she was nothing more than a shadowed face. But now her features were clear. She was like no other woman I had ever seen. The sides of her head were cleanly shaven and in the middle of her head was a braided queue of thick jet black and blue hair that fell to the front of her face. We all stared at her then, the silence on the boat becoming as marked as the pleas for help only seconds before.
“Where do you hail from? Are you in need of assistance?” Her words were Vietnamese, but they sounded as if her tongue had been taken, wrapped around a poem, and restrung in curves back to us.
“We are refugees from Việt Nam,” mother stepped forward speaking words many had waited ten years to voice, “We request asylum.”
“You are under the protection of the Waterlands of Lạc, we will grant you sanctuary.” Cheers and sobs broke out at the welcoming words of the strange woman. Ropes were thrown down from their vessel and the woman descended along with two other people onto our fishing boat. Their eyes and their skin, the features of their faces, their voices clearly told us they were Vietnamese, but their clothes, their height…they were as tall as
the tallest American soldiers, if not taller. Their hair was in motley cuts with wild colors. Their skin and faces were marked with black drawings like the ancient fisherman who had taken to carving sea monsters on their bodies. We backed up instinctively, alarmed at their strangeness. The blue-haired woman approached an elder, bowing deeply.
“Grandmother.” Her voice undulated in reflections of the respect so endearing to our people. “The sea has brought you to us and we will care for you. Come and we will brew tea and cook rice for you.” She reached out to the elder, whose face broke into a grimace of blackened teeth and relaxed sobs. She lifted the elder and passed her like a child to receiving arms on her vessel.
One after another, people allowed themselves to be lifted, carried and transferred away from our fishing boat, until I was the only one left.
“She is yours?”
I looked at the fishing boat, a glimmer of nostalgic remorse creeping into my heart. “No. She belongs to the sea now.”
Then I asked her, “How far from Việt Nam are we?”
Her calm smile told me that she knew more than she was ready to share with me. “Far enough to be safe, close enough to be home.”
Then she turned and leaped gracefully onto her vessel and extended an open hand to me. I accepted it.
WELL OF TRANQUILITY
Steven H Silver
"Well of Tranquility", by Steven H Silver, is set at G'ndevank Monastery. The monastery is very old. Its central building, the church of St. Stepanos, dates back to 936. In 1604 much of the monastery was destroyed, but it was rebuilt in 1691, this time with high walls. Protected by its walls and riddled with underground rooms and passages, the monastery endures through the turbulent history of Armenia.
Christianity came early to Armenia—in fact, it became the first officially Christian state in 301. Long before Christianity came to Armenia, a complex and frequently shifting mythology existed. In this tradition, Vahagn the Dragon Reaper ruled, along with his lover, Astghik. Astghik was the goddess of fertility, love, and water. One legend about Astghik tells of her spreading love throughout Armenia by sprinkling rose water everywhere she went. The festival of Vartavar is still celebrated throughout Armenia in the summer. It's a playful, riotous celebration during which people splash each other with water in honor of the goddess.
Christianity has a long tradition of co-opting pagan festivals and turning them into Christian ones. Rather than attempt to stamp out the festival of Vartavar, the Church tried to claim it as their own. According to Christian tradition, Noah ordered his sons to spill water on each other in remembrance of the Flood. The holiday is known as the Feast of Transfiguration, and the holiday commemorates Christ's appearance to his disciples on Mount Tabor. But people still remember the Goddess Astghik and her healing rose water. The water dumped on you from your neighbor's balcony during Vartavar is startling, refreshing, healing—and still fun, even after centuries.
***
Above the Armenian mountain village of Gndevaz, there is a monastery that was founded in the tenth century. Sprouting from this monastery, like a tumor, is a small room that predates the rest of G'ndevank monastery by an unknown number of centuries. Small and dark, this room was accessible only to a few select monks throughout the ages. Men the Abbot felt could withstand the utter sensation of peace that overcame those who spent any amount of time in the cell.
I was tending the monastery’s vineyard with several other brothers when Brother Onik came to tell me that Abbot Mesrop needed to speak to me immediately. We hurried down the mountain, Brother Onik, whose young feet were much more sure than my own, leading the way and me trying to keep up as he found some invisible path through the weeds and scarp.
Brother Onik guided me to the postern gate and held it open for me before we hurried through the narrow, ancient stone hallways that made up the monastery. A place of worship and meditation, G’ndavank was seemingly built to withstand a siege by the Byzants and the Seljuks. While both those tribes had over run Gndevaz in their time, the city, and the monastery, still stood while the Byzants and Seljuks were mere memories the old women in town used to frighten children with.
Abbot Mesrop sat in his office behind a massive wooden desk that seemed as much a part of the monastery as the stone walls, but which couldn’t have been more than fifty years old, younger, in fact, than the Abbot, who had ruled the monastery since the time of the great purges, and now Abbot Mesrop and G'ndevank were still standing, while the Stalinists were as much the dead past as the Seljuks. I stood in silence, waiting for the Holy Father to look up and acknowledge me. He took his time finishing writing something with the old-fashioned fountain pen he always used, carefully blotted the page, and looked up at me. “Brother Sevak,” he said in his deep voice that brought importance to even the most trivial utterance.
“Holy Father,” I replied, practically a ritual, as was everything that happened within the ancient stone walls.
“I have been monitoring your progress for many years,” he began. With only a score of monks on the grounds of the monastery that once housed more than 100, this was no great feat, but I bowed my head in humility and understanding.
“I’ve watched you interact the other brothers. Quietly, nothing overt, nothing obvious. They see you as a leader even if you don’t see yourself that way. Our Lord needs men like you to step up and work in his name to the best of your abilities.
“As you know, there is a meditation cell that the novices are forbidden to enter. Few monks, sometimes only one in a generation, are given the privilege of praying in the cell. I’ve discussed you with Brother Dadour, and we’ve decided that you shall have access to the meditation cell, although your time will be limited until we know that you can…” Father Mesrop seemed to search for a word, “…survive in the cell.”
“I thank you for this honor,” I replied, “although I am not worthy of it.”
“We are not always aware of our worth,” Father Mesrop said and I lowered my eyes.
Father Mesrop rang a small brass hand bell sitting on his desk and Brother Dadour entered the room. “Would you please show Brother Sevak to the cell?”
Brother Dadour bowed low and took my arm, guiding me from the Abbot’s presence into the long, narrow corridors of G'ndevank.
“A great honor has been bestowed upon you, for currently only one living monk has been permitted into the cell,” Brother Dadour told me. “Father Mesrop was the last monk to be allowed to use the cell, and that was more than sixty years ago. I have never crossed the threshold into the room and all I know of it, all I shall pass on to you, is what I have learned from Father Mesrop.”
Brother Dadour spoke in guarded tones, as if he feared the walls of G’ndevank would hear his secrets and scream them to the world outside.
“Father Mesrop tells me that a supernatural calm falls upon those who enter the cell, allowing their thoughts to bring them closer to Him in a way that he has never felt in any other place in the world. But, he also warns that the feeling of serenity can be dangerous, for it is a…how did he describe it…an enticing calmness, as much to be feared as revel in.” Brother Dadour saw the expression on my face, “No. I don’t understand what that means. I expect you will, soon.”
Despite the prohibited nature of the cell, it held a central location in the monastery, located next to the chapel of Saint Stepan. It was barred from the monks by a series of three intricate locks, to which Brother Dadour held a key, Father Mesrop held a key, and another key was stored in a location somewhere in the monastery known only to Father Mesrop. Before coming to retrieve me from Father Mesrop’s presence, Brother Dadour had acquired all three of the keys.
Solitude was nothing new for me, or any monk, really. In addition to our chores in the fields and our communal prayers, each of us spent several hours each day in solitude, contemplating His creation and our own minuscule place in the vastness of the universe. I expected this cell, called the khaghagh, to be no different than m
y own cell where I had contemplated the world since I chose my path in the chaotic months following the independence of Armenia from the Soviet oppressors.
Brother Dadour opened the door and motioned for me to enter. The khaghagh held a sleeping pallet, a wash basin, a Bible, and a khachkar, the floral cross of Armenia which differs from the Spartan crosses and elaborate crucifixes of other nations. In its appearance and sparseness, the khaghagh was much like any other cell in G'ndevank. Had I seen a picture of it, I couldn’t have identified it as anything except a standard monastic cell. Perhaps the ceiling was a little lower, the construction showed signs of its age, which monastic lore claimed predated the rest of the monastery by more than four centuries.
“Thank you, brother.” I said to Brother Dadour as I crossed the threshold. As I did, a calm unlike any I had ever experienced settled over me.
“God be with you, Brother Sevak. I shall return for you shortly before dinner.”
The wooden door closed without a sound and I knelt in front of the khachkar.
“Eemasdootyoon Hor Hisoos,” I began the prayer for Wisdom, hoping to understand the great honor Father Mesrop had bestowed upon me. Whether or not I received an answer was irrelevant, for I felt comforted simply kneeling and saying the prayer.
My reverie was interrupted by a slight tapping on the door. I moved to open the door and found Brother Dadour on the other side.
“Will you join us for dinner, brother?”
“It has only been a few minutes, no more than half an hour.”
“You are mistaken. Several hours have passed since I left you. I have been knocking for at least five minutes. Please, join us for dinner.”
I left the khaghagh with the strong sense that I had missed something, but a serenity imparted by the room seemed to remain with me even as I entered the monastery’s refectory.
Genius Loci Page 18