Report to Grego (44 page)

I enjoyed this divine solitude for seven days. On the seventh day the guestmaster, cheerful as always, came to my cell.

“The holy abbot sent me to ask where your soul stands, and what decision you have made.”

“I kiss his hand,” I replied. “I would like to go to confession before I answer him.”

The guestmaster paused for a moment.

“Would you like to stay with us?” he inquired finally.

“I would like to stay with God, and here in the desert I feel Him closer to me than elsewhere. I'm afraid, however, that all the roots which bind me to the world still have not been plucked out. I shall confess to the abbot, and he will decide.”

“Take care! The holy abbot expects a great deal from men.”

“I expect a great deal from myself, Father. That is why I keep hanging back.”

He hesitated just as he was opening the door to leave.

“Father Joachim gave me a message. He would like to see you.”

“Father Joachim?”

“The old man who came to the reception hall with me to welcome you.”

I was pleased. At last I would learn the identity of this strange, taciturn monk.

“When?” I asked.

“He says tonight, in his cell.”

“Fine. Tell him I'll be there.”

“He used to be a man of rank. He associates with no one, speaks only with God. He discovered your name and wants to see you. Address him with respect.” With these words he strode across the threshold without waiting for my reply.

I tarried until night descended in earnest and the monks fell
asleep. One by one the lights in the cells went out. Walking on tiptoe down the long cloister, I reached Father Joachim's cell. I stopped to catch my breath, for I had begun to pant as though I had been running. The light was on. I placed my ear against the door and listened intently. Silence. Just as I started to lift my hand in order to knock, the cell door opened and Father Joachim appeared. His head was uncovered, his white hair flowing over his shoulders. He had a thick knotted cord about his waist and was barefooted.

“Welcome,” he said. “I hope no one saw you. Come in.”

The walls were bare. In the corner a narrow straw mattress supported between a pair of iron bedsteads. Two stools, a tiny table, a jug in a niche in the wall. A thick bound volume on the table, obviously the Gospels, and a broad wooden cross on the wall opposite, painted not with Christ's crucifixion but with His resurrection. Rows of apples were suspended from the rafters, strung together into chaplets; the entire cell reeked of rotting fruit.

Father Joachim stretched out his arms. The cell was so narrow that they nearly touched the two walls. “This is my cocoon,” he said, smiling. “I shut myself in here like a larva. I am waiting for the day when I shall emerge as a butterfly.”

He shook his head. I could see him biting his narrow, moldered lips as he stood next to the lamp, which illuminated his long wizened face. His voice now was full of derision and bitterness.

“What else do you expect a poor larva to dream about? Wings!”

He fell silent. Turning, he looked at me. The derision had faded; his glance was that of a man who needed help.

“What do you think? Why does the larva dream of wings? Is it just his simple-minded innocence? Or his impudence? Or could his shoulders actually be tingling with the wings he is preparing?”

He made a rapid motion with his arm, as though he had a sponge in his hand and was erasing something.

“So far and no further!” he exclaimed. “We've gotten to deep waters very quickly—that's enough! . . . Take a stool and sit down. It was to tell you something else that I called you. . . . Well, sit down. Don't pay attention to me; I can't sit down.”

He laughed.

“There is a heresy, you know, called ‘Always on your feet.' I've subscribed to that heresy for years now, ever since my childhood.”

“I, Father, belong to another heresy: ‘Always uneasy.' I have been battling ever since my childhood.”

“Battling with whom?”

I hesitated. Suddenly I was terror-stricken.

“With whom?” the monk repeated. Then, leaning over to me and lowering his voice: “With God?”

“Yes.”

The old man riveted his eyes on me without speaking.

“Could this be a disease, Father? How can I be cured?”

“May you never be cured!”

He raised his hand as though to bless—or curse—me.

“Alas if you had to wrestle with your equal or inferior. But since you are wrestling with God, alas if you are ever cured of this disease.”

He fell silent for a moment, and then: “Temptations come to us very often here in the desert. One night I had a strange temptation in my sleep. I saw myself as a great sage in Jerusalem. I could cure many different diseases, but first and foremost I was able to remove demons from the possessed. People brought patients to me from all over Palestine, and one day Mary the wife of Joseph arrived from Nazareth, bringing her twelve-year-old son Jesus. Falling at my feet, she cried out tearfully, ‘O illustrious sage, take pity on me and heal my son. He has many demons inside him.'

“I had the parents go outside. When I remained alone with Jesus, I caressed his hand and asked him, ‘What is the matter, my child? Where does it hurt?'

“‘Here, here . . .' he replied, pointing to his heart.

“‘And what's wrong with you?'

“‘I can't sleep, eat, or work. I roam the streets, wrestling.'

“‘Who are you wrestling with?'

“‘With God. Who else do you expect me to be wrestling with!'

“I kept him near me for a month, addressed him ever so gently, gave him herbs to make him sleep. I placed him in a carpenter's shop to learn a trade. We went out for walks together and I spoke to him about God, as though He were a friend and neighbor who came in the evening to sit with us on our doorstep and chat. There was nothing impressive or difficult about these talks. We spoke of the weather, of the wheatfields and vineyards, the young girls who went to the fountain . . .

“At the end of a month's time, Jesus was completely cured. He no longer wrestled with God; he had become a man like all other men. He departed for Galilee, and I learned afterwards that he had become a fine carpenter, the best in Nazareth.”

The monk glanced at me.

“Do you understand?” he asked. “Jesus was cured. Instead of saving the world, he became the best carpenter in Nazareth! What is the meaning, then, of ‘disease' and ‘health'? . . . Well, enough of all that—let's change the subject! . . . You seem tired. Sit down.”

I sat down on a stool beneath the icon. I kept gazing at the monk's bare feet on the paving stones, their delicate bone structure, slender ankles, long aristocratic toes. The lamplight made them glow like ancient marble turned reddish blond by the sun.

He retreated two steps, then returned and stood in front of me, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Look up,” he said in a caressing voice, as though speaking to a small child. “Regard me well. Don't you remember me?”

“I never set eyes on you in my life,” I replied with astonishment.

“Nothing fades from a child's mind. Surely my face still exists somewhere deep down in your memory. Not this aged, shriveled one, but another—handsome, firm, and manly. Listen: I spent one summer in Crete, when you were not quite five years old. I was a wholesaler in those days, dealing in citrons, carob beans, and raisins. Your father was one of my suppliers. Is he still alive?”

“Yes, but he's old, bent, and toothless now. He sits on the couch all day long and reads the Prayer Book.”

“Most unjust!” shouted the monk, raising his hands. “Bodies like his should never deteriorate; they should fall down dead all of a sudden while they are walking and the ground is crunching beneath them. Death is the work of God, the name of the spot where God touches man; but bodily deterioration is the treacherous, dishonest work of the devil. . . . Can it really be true that Captain Michael is old and decrepit?”

He remained silent for some time. His eyes had grown ferocious. But soon he took a breath and continued.

“Your father used to buy raisins, citrons, and carobs on account for me. I loaded ships and sent them to Trieste. I did very well, earned money hand over fist, and flung away just as much. I was a
wild beast who could never have his fill of eating, drinking, and fornicating. I had sold my soul to Satan; my body was left master-less and unbridled. I sneered at God, called Him a bogeyman and scarecrow able to do nothing more than frighten away brainless sparrows and keep them from pecking in gardens. Each evening after I finished work, I devoted myself to shameless carousing until dawn.

“Now, try to remember: early one morning you were standing in front of your father's shop when all of a sudden you heard singing, laughter, and a coach-in-four speeding along at a frantic pace. Turning, you saw a half-dozen inebriated women—café singers-all shrieking and guffawing at the top of their lungs while they flung walnuts and figs at the people in the street. The driver was a majestic figure with a shiny top hat; he whipped the horses maniacally, and they whinnied with excitement and galloped. Then you felt afraid; you thought they were coming straight for you, and you screamed and ran to hide behind your father's apron. . . . Do you remember? Does it come back to you now? The drunken coachman was me. I had on a top hat, I tell you—a ‘stove pipe'—and in order to tease you I directed the whip right at you and snapped it in the air. . . . Now do you remember?”

He bent over, placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a shove.

“Do you remember?”

I had closed my eyes. While listening to him, I had been struggling to push aside the layer upon layer of memories stowed on top of my childhood years. Little by little the darkness thinned, and suddenly the four horses, the drunken “chanteuses,” the frightening top hat, and the cracking of the whip above my head all bounded, fully alive, out of the deeps of my memory.

“Yes, yes,” I cried. “I remember! And was it you, Father? You?”

But the old monk did not hear me. He had leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It was thus, with lowered eyelids, that he continued.

“One morning I found I'd had enough. The fleshly round is not very extensive; it comes quickly to an end. You eat, drink, kiss, eat again, drink again, kiss again—and there is no place else to go. In the end, I tell you, I found I'd had enough. Remembering my soul, I stepped into a carriage and went to a monastery on Mount
Athos. I stayed three months. Prayer, fasting, matins, Divine Liturgy; work detail, barley bread, rancid olives, baked beans—I soon became sick of it all. I sent for the coachman again; he arrived and took me away. But what was I to do in the world now? It had not a single joy to offer me any more, not a single untasted sin. I returned to the monastery, but I instructed the coachman to remain nearby this time, to wait in the nearest village in case I should need him. And indeed before long I did need him. Once again I absconded from the monastery.

“My life had degenerated until it became unbearable. I was suspended between heaven and earth, swinging from one to the other and rejected by both. I went to an old ascetic who lived far from monasteries, in a cave dug into a cliff jutting over the sea, and had him confess me.

“‘What shall I do, holy Father? Give me some advice?'

“The old ascetic placed his hand on my head. ‘Be patient, my child; do not be hasty. Haste is one of the devil's snares. Wait calmly, with faith.'

“‘How long?'

“‘Until salvation ripens in you. Allow time for the sour grape to turn to honey.'

“‘And how shall I know, Father, when the sour grape has turned to honey.'

“‘One morning you will rise and see that the world has changed. But you will have changed, my child, not the world. Salvation will have ripened in you. At that point surrender yourself to God, and you shall never betray Him.'

“That is exactly what happened. One morning I opened my window. Dawn was just breaking, the morning star still twinkling in the sky. The calm sea sighed lightly and tenderly as it broke along the shore line. We were still in the heart of winter, yet a medlar tree in front of my window had blossomed; its aroma was peppery, as sweet as honey. It had rained during the night; the leaves were still dripping, and the whole earth glittered contentedly. ‘Lord, O Lord, what a miracle this is,' I murmured, and I began to weep. It was then that I understood: salvation had arrived. I came here to the desert and buried myself inside this cell with its humble bed, its jug of water, its two little stools. Now I am waiting. Waiting for what? God forgive me, but I really do not
know very well. This doesn't bother me, however. Whatever comes will be welcome. I believe that in any event I shall come out ahead. If the afterlife actually exists, I will have managed to repent at the last moment. (Did not Christ give us His word that repentance even a split second before death brings salvation?) If on the other hand the afterlife does not exist, at least I will have enjoyed this life, squeezed the juice out of it and thrown it over my shoulder like a lemon rind. . . . Do you understand? What are you thinking about?”

“I was wondering why you invited me to your cell tonight, Father. Surely you wanted to tell me something else besides this.”

He tilted the jug, filled a cup with water, and took a sip. Since he had been unaccustomed to talking for so many years, his throat must have grown parched.

“Of course I wanted to tell you something else, but first you had to learn who I was. Only thus can you understand what I want to tell you, and realize that I have the right to tell it to you.”

He fell silent for a moment, but then, weighing his words, he added in a voice filled with emotion, “Not only the right, but the duty!”

I raised my eyes to look at him. He was standing stiff and straight now in the middle of the cell, like a column. I looked at him and marveled. What joys, what humiliations this man had tasted, what impudence he had displayed in challenging the Almighty. I marveled at how he had entered the desert without deigning to forget, how he had bravely allowed the caravan of his sins to follow behind him so that, full of confidence, he and they could march all together toward God.