The Investigations of Avram Davidson (9 page)

“I could have throttled him. ‘What do you mean, gone? You've sold it, you scoundrel!' I said. But by and by I saw that he was telling me the truth.
The Bishop took it!
‘For safekeeping'! For forty years the Bishops didn't even know it was there, didn't think about it, care about it—now, just when I take an interest, so does the Bishop.… What we need Bishops for at all is something I can't see. It is just this sort of thing which causes anti-clericalism.”

Carpius sat back, breathing heavily, while Paul hardly breathed at all. Gradually the angry color ebbed from the antique dealer's face.

“Tomorrow,” he said calmly, “I shall see what can be done about arranging to have it stolen. If nothing can be done—and, sometimes, alas, such is the case—I shall be obliged,” he sighed, “to offer to sell it on commission.”

He rose, flicked on the lights, and walked over to the windows. He removed a small painting of a meditative bull in a peeling gilt frame and replaced it with a set of ivory and ebony chessmen, and had just stepped back to consider the effect when two men arrived in front of the shop. Mr. Carpius muttered something short and rapid, then smiled broadly as the two men entered.

“My dear,
dear
Mr. Calloost Chiringirian!” he sang out. “
And
Major—Major—?”

“Parslow,” said the Major, a thick-set, ruddy-faced man whose bulging chest was covered with rows of ribbons.

“Hello, Carpius,” said Mr. Calloost Chiringirian negligently. He was a tall man in a gray astrakhan hat, and the same pelt showed at the cuffs and collars of his coat. He turned a clever, sallow, eagle-face to the shop owner. “I've brought you a customer. Major Parslow is his Regiment's treasurer and he is looking for a piece of silver suitable for a farewell present to Colonel Eggerton, who is being retired. Something heavy and hideous—the Colonel's taste leans towards the Edwardian, if not to say, the Victorian. Nymphs, with huge bosoms and massive buttocks, supporting an inkwell in the form of St. Paul's Cathedral—
that
sort of rubbish, Carpius.
Your
sort of rubbish.”

“Mr. Chiringirian's sense of humor is famous,” Carpius said bleakly.

“Quite,” said Major Parslow.

Carpius snapped his fingers. “Paul,” he said. Paul jumped, began to climb up a small ladder and take things down from shelves. Behind Carpius's face various emotions seethed and bubbled. He hated the suave Armenian, who had got the better of him in many a deal, and he hated him none the less for now deriding him through his merchandise. And yet he envied him with all his heart for daring to speak before Major Parslow with a boldness which he, Carpius, would never dare employ.

“Offer him a fifth of what he asks, my dear Major,” the tall man was saying. “And certainly do not pay more than a third.”

“I am happy,” said Carpius, “to be of service to the Major. We British—”

“You?”
the Major asked. Paul came up holding, or rather clutching, an object consisting of two silver Scotchmen in kilts, standing on a slab of marble, and supporting a clock with several dials on its enormous face.

“I was born, of all places, in Hong Kong,” Carpius tittered, “and, naturally, my being a British subject by birth is my most precious possession.”

“Next, of course, to your virtue,” Chiringirian said. “Examine it well, Major. It is gruesome enough to please even Colonel Eggerton, and it tells the time, the day and month, the year, and the phases of the moon.… I have just returned today, Carpius, from a visit to Thallassaöpolis, where I paid my respects to the Bishop. A delightful man. He had me to tea.”

Carpius glared, quivering.

“He wanted my advice and counsel. Would you believe it, Carpius—an ikon of St. Mamas of the Eleventh Century, and a silver cover dating from the reign of the Emperor Isaac Comnenus … Lovely, lovely. He had removed it, on my advice, from a neglected chapel in the hills. We—ah—came to terms. It is now in a bank vault. How lucky I heard of it … dear me, Carpius, you are pale.” The Armenian smiled coldly.

Carpius stared at him, livid, but he soon composed himself.

Chiringirian gestured. “This sort of rubbish you have here,” he said, “would have sold well to the old Turks. They had an unfailing taste for the worst in Western Art—if, indeed, one may call it art. The Imperial Turks, the Imperial Russians, Major, they were faulty and even wicked—but when I recall the blood bath and holocaust which followed their overthrow—” He sighed deeply.

Carpius shrugged.
He
remembered the unrest in Russia and Asia Minor with affection. Business had never been so brisk, before or since. The loot of a thousand churches and monasteries passed through his hands. Perhaps those days might come again. Carpius gazed with sudden disgust around the crowded shop. It
was
rubbish—Chiringirian was right. He thought of jeweled crosses and golden communion spoons. One never knew what might happen, with half the peoples of Asia ready for one another's throats.

He let Major Parslow have, with barely a struggle, and at only four hundred per cent profit, a silver snuff-mull in the shape of a ram's head, with carnelian eyes: when the top was lifted a concealed music box played
Rule, Britannia.

“Adio, Carpius,” Chiringirian said, with a crooked smile. “We shall meet at Philippi—though I, personally, prefer the Riviera. After you, dear Major.”

It was then time to close the shop. Paul put up the iron shutters and locked them, and was dismissed to the comfort of home and fireside, represented by his elder sister, a sharp-tongued spinster with a black mustache. Carpius turned his thoughts to old Eleftheria in the kitchen—or, more exactly, to the lamb pilaf and the stuffed grape leaves. Briefly he reflected that his dislike of his tall rival had put him in such emotional confusion that he had committed a great breach of custom: he had neglected to offer coffee—the sweet, thick, black coffee of the Levant, served in tiny cups with beaten-brass lids—without which scarcely any business deal or social call in Cyprus is conducted. But his mind quickly left this embarrassing recollection, and returned to supper and to the bottle of Commandaria which was to accompany it; and at this moment someone knocked on the shop door.

Carpius, about to switch off the lights, hesitated. Then he shrugged. “Who is there?” he called out.

“The monk Theodoros,” was the answer.

“And what is it you wish?”

“I have … that is … Do you buy ikons?”

“One moment.” Carpius began to unbolt the door. The chances were that the monk had some wretched modern daub to offer, in the worst style of cigar-box art; but one never knew, and besides, it was always well to make as many contacts with custodians of church property as possible.

Carpius opened the door. The monk Theodoros entered diffidently. His blue cassock was worn and patched, but the long, dark hair gathered in a bun at the back was glossy with health, and the fresh blood of youth was on his cheeks where as yet an untrimmed beard grew sparsely. Looking into the monk's eyes, Carpius received a startling impression: they were not the eyes of social man; they were like the eyes of some untamed bird of the hills or seas—clear and bright and focused afar off. In the Greek Church, whose priests may marry, the term of “monk” is applied to all celibate priests, including those in parish positions; but Carpius felt certain that Theodoros was not one of these.

“Which is your monastery?” the dealer asked.

“Saints Barnabas and Basil,” the monk replied in a low voice.

Carpius knit his forehead in thought. “I don't believe I have ever heard of it,” he said, and almost at once a vague shadow of memory arose, only to fade quickly.

“It is a small monastery. It … here is the ikon.” The young monk began to unwrap it from a piece of oilcloth. Carpius took it. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He lifted it close to his eyes, then to his nose, then examined it again. The style was Early Byzantine, or late Hellenistic, and depicted the Prophet Elijah lifting a hand in benediction while standing in a fiery chariot drawn by fiery horses. The hands and face were that shade of gray which in the Eastern Church indicates sanctity. Across the top, in old Greek minuscules, was written: “
Prophetas Elias
ascending unto Heaven.” The legend along the bottom read: “Painted by the hermit Prokopios to the glory of the Thrice-Holy and for the salvation of his soul.”

“Why, the paint is hardly dry on it!” Carpius said.

“Yes, it is newly done,” the monk admitted, “but surely the paint is quite dry? Yes.” He tested it. Carpius ignored the gesture. His mind moved warily, searching for the right words. He must not startle this shy creature, he must move warily. If what he thought was true—

“I trust,” he said cautiously, “that proper care is being taken of the original. It is very old. And very holy,” he added hastily.

“Oh, very holy,” the monk agreed. “In all Cyprus there is no holier ikon. It is never left alone for a single moment—one monk is always engaged in prayer before it.”

“Very proper.… What is the price of this copy?”

The price was low enough, but Carpius automatically knocked a few piasters off it. He let the young monk depart, but not without asking his blessing. It was not the dealer's intention to make too great an impression this first time, but he wanted the impression to be a favorable one. That night, after supper, and while leisurely smoking a yellow Egyptian cigarette, he questioned old Eleftheria.

The Monastery of Saints Barnabas and Basil? Oh, yes, she had heard of it, but she hardly knew what to say about it. It had not been built as a religious retreat; originally it was only a large farmhouse. She supposed that the monks were devout: they were always keeping fast days and fast periods to commemorate events everyone else had forgotten; they ate no meat, no fish, no eggs, no milk, no cheese; and they also mortified themselves with long vigils spent either on their feet or knees. But the fact was, they were heretics! Yes, they had thrown off the discipline of the Holy, Orthodox, and Autocephalic Church of Cyprus, if such a thing could be believed. And why? Because of the calendar. When the Archbishop had followed the Four Patriarchs in directing that the Gregorian Calendar should be adopted so that the religious date should agree with the civil date, these monks had defied him. What, adopt the innovation of a “Latin” Pope? Abandon the ancient Julian Calendar always used by the Church? Never! So, of course, they had been put under the ban, and had retreated to their Monastery. They were very poor, few in number, and, worst of all, they were said to have opposed the
enosis
movement; they had not desired union with the Motherland because the Greek government had outlawed the Julian Calendar Sect in Greece.

Carpius listened, outwardly—but only outwardly—not very interested. But after Eleftheria had tottered off to bed, he took from the bookshelf a large illustrated volume, Spendlove's
The Iconography of Cyprus,
and rapidly turned the pages. Yes, it was mentioned there. Spendlove, the greatest authority on the religious art of the island, had seen it in 1905. He described the ikon faithfully, but the monks—the ikon had then been located in a monastery near Paphos—had not permitted him to photograph it or any of their other ikons: “…being as yet unconvinced [wrote Spendlove] that the camera is not an invention of the devil. They have very little sense of time—all the events of Christian history seem almost contemporary to them. Constantinople has fallen only yesterday, and Alexandria (I attribute this ikon of Elijah to the Alexandrian School) only the day before. Hence the reason why they do not seem to value this particular ikon more than any other, despite its unquestionable age.”

Carpius wondered how it had got from where it was then to where it is now, but the point was not important; probably it had simply been taken by one of the dissident monks—since he was not going to buy it he need not bother about a clear title. Carpius did wonder, though, why its present custodians obviously valued it more than its former owners did. He thought he knew the answer and decided to waste no more time—to leave the next day.

*   *   *

T
HE MONASTERIES OF
C
YPRUS
, where so many traditions of earlier times still linger, are as open for travelers to lodge in as churches are open for them to pray in. Rooms are always kept for visitors' convenience. There is no charge made for this, or for meals, but it is customary for travelers to drop something in the pyx on leaving.

Carpius, not particularly desiring to adopt the ascetic diet of the monks, brought along an ample supply of provisions—canned delicacies, smoked meats, sweets, a bottle of rum. He did not know how long his stay would last, but business had fallen off so much because of the rains (Mr. Harari and Major Parslow had been the only decent customers in days) that his absence could hardly make things worse. He had not told Paul where he was going. Paul was dependable, but only up to a point: he babbled to his sister, and his sister had the longest tongue in Nicosia. Carpius would not be surprised if the sale of the ikon of St. Mamas had not contributed quite a few pounds toward her dowry—trust Chiringirian for that. Nor did Carpius desire to make himself conspicuous by taking his own car. He regretted that the railroad had been discontinued, but regrets were useless.

Jolting from side to side in the small and crowded bus, the antique dealer regretted the absence of the railroad still more. The day was misty, the curves on the mountain roads were exceedingly sharp, and the driver's habit of taking one hand off the wheel to cross himself while making each turn did nothing at all for Carpius's peace of mind. The only gratification of the ride was that the other passengers were all too busy talking to one another to notice him. There was little logic in his desire to be inconspicuous, but he felt that in order to avoid the bad luck of the St. Mamas incident he ought to go about this matter differently. There was so much more at stake this time. If the ikon of the Eleventh Century were so valuable, then the price of this earlier one almost transcended the power of estimation.