Azazeel (35 page)

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.’

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T
he 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?

On Saturday the lyre which the abbot had ordered did not arrive, and he was upset. I assured him we would not need it because I could make do with the voices of the singers, and he was relieved.
I told him I would devote the time between the nine o’clock prayers and the noon prayers to seeing patients, and the time between the noon prayers and the three o’clock prayers to
training the singing group, and the night to prayer and reading. He prayed to the Lord to bless me at all hours of the day, and added, ‘If you have finished the Lent fast, my child, then take
care of your health a little, because tonight your face looks very pale and drawn.’

We finished the sunset prayer, which here they call the ‘eyelash’ prayer and I went back to the library delighted. I was not aware of the paleness which the abbot had noticed. I
thought he meant that I seemed distracted and preoccupied. Taking precautions, I went and took my pulse with my other hand and found it regular. I shut the door behind me, took off my clothes and
began to press my finger at the points where the blood flows on the surface of the body and the flow at those points was excellent. I looked at my face in the sheet of silver that covers the Bible,
and the effects of time were evident. Age had suddenly caught up with me: the whites of my eyes had turned yellow, my beard had grown wild and grey, like the beards of hermits who live in caves and
grottoes. Why had I so neglected my appearance that I was now a pitiful sight? Had I forgotten that I was a physician and that I must preserve my appearance or else none of my patients would have
confidence in me? A physician has to look after his appearance, as the eminent Hippocrates wrote hundreds of years ago and as physicians ever since have pledged. But never mind, every disease has a
cure, and every problem has a solution. I mean to say, most diseases have a cure and most problems have a solution.

I left the library with resolve and rushed across the courtyard to my room. Out of the trunk I took the gown which a priest in Antioch had given me a year earlier after I gave him some simple
treatment for colic and he recovered quickly. Why did I fold up this habit and keep it packed away for so long I am lucky the moths did not destroy it? I’ll wear it tomorrow. At the bottom of
the chest there’s an old pair of scissors, rusty but sharp enough to trim the wilder parts of my beard. From under the table I took some simples, including dried herbs which are soaked in
water for an hour, then put on the eyes as a poultice to remove the yellowness, some of which are mixed with oil and applied to the face to improve its colour by attracting the blood, and some
aromatics which are made into an infusion to lave the body with, giving it a sweet scent and making it smoother to the touch. Tomorrow morning I will be a new person, fit to be called a good monk
and poet.

I did everything that needed to be done, then slept like a log in my room. Weeks had passed since I last slept there, because in the summer months of last year I spent the nights in the library,
preferring the cool air there, or rather too lazy to go from there to this stifling room of mine. Just before dawn I woke up briskly, filled the bucket with water from the big trough near the
refectory, and warmed it up a little on the kitchen stove. Then I went up to the room, closed the door and set about rubbing my skin with rough palm fibre to remove what was left of the herbs. As I
bathed I massaged my limbs with pumice, and finally I put on the elegant ecclesiastical garment which I had forgotten in the trunk.

When the abbot saw me at the church door on Sunday morning he smiled broadly and said, ‘Hypa the monk has found the elixir of life. Last night he was two steps away from death, and here he
is this morning, reverted to a young man in his twenties.’ Embarrassed at his teasing, I replied, ‘This, my Lord, is how physicians and poets should look. What you said yesterday
reminded me of the pitiful state I was in.’