The Nature of Work, Part 5

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 first.

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The Find

It was just another day, just another plank – neither harder nor easier to lift than most, the nail heads groaning as they were left behind like tiny square-headed sentinels.

So, seeing a cylinder in red Morocco leather on the dry earth lying as simply as if this day was entirely foreseen, Yannis was unable to move, heart racing, confused by this intrusion into the normal pattern of his days.

He dared himself to touch it. The leather was dry and flexible with a shiny crackly patina. He dared himself to lift it – as if it were a snake or toad – onto the plank adjoining the gap. He thought, In a moment I’ll feel this is it but right now nothing, not joy, not relief, not anticipation, not the urge to open it. Is this weird emptiness what happens, he wondered, when one achieves an ambition?

He stood and moved away, then hurried back, touched it, shrank back. The cell he was working in, Tonga, seemed to press in on him.

He strode out along the corridor planning to make coffee as he did when stressed even though there was no stress, only numbness like that of a fat grub injected with wasp eggs. But in the kitchen he turned back, ran back, lifted the thing as gingerly as if it were a snake, and with unquiet fingers unlaced the leather drawstring.

Into his unsteady palm Yannis tipped a scroll. A scent like that of old books arose from the vellum. He was about to read the words of Apostolis which would change his life. He could hardly control his awkwardness as he unrolled it.

Script. Black ink flowing diagonally. Curling like the tendrils of pea plants or the toes of Turkish slippers. Arabic? But a gold sun at the head on which was more script, the calligrapher’s name, perhaps, and the spaces around enlivened with paintings of roses and tulips in crimson, green, and gold, could only be Ottoman work. Ottoman!

The Letter

My Dear Yannis,

You felt you had to confess our love as sin. I myself never thought it sinful. My only choice now is exile in Rhodes where I have cousins. I suppose Italians and their Greek subjects will need things sewn. I will always think of you.

Anastasia.

Unaware that bitterness and misunderstanding can follow even the grandest love affairs, Yannis felt a physical blow. He sat in agonised vigil through the night, and at daybreak found the pain undiminished.

The Interview

“This way,” said Giorgos brusquely from the corner of his mouth opposite the cigar. He led Yannis to the refectory where they sat facing each other.

He took a folder from his satchel and dropped it on the table with an explosive sound, raising days’ worth of dust. Yannis wondered whether to take off his pectoral cross or wait. Giorgos gutted the folder like a fish. Sheets of writing in a familiar hand.

“I have your reports,” he said and bent his head to study them.

Yannis tried to imagine what was coming.

***

Giorgos finishes reading and demands the cross which Yannis takes off and places on the table. But as Giorgos reaches for it, Yannis snatches it back and raises it to his lips before replacing it.

“Clear your cell,” Giorgos says. “Sweep it out, gather your effects and wait for the boy to bring lay clothes.”

“Where will I stay tonight?”

“The guesthouse of Katerina Kyriacou.”

Yannis knew of her – ancient and inquisitive, feeding on others’ misfortunes. “Does it have to be this village, Father?”

A sour look.

“Confession?”

“To Vangelis.”

Yannis looks down at the table top. He hears the receding slap of Giorgios’s sandals on the floor he spent so much time on. When Yannis looks up, he is gone.

***

In another version: Giorgos hugs him to his chest. Yannis bursts into tears and rests his head on his shoulder.

 “I am unworthy, Father.”

 “Come, my son,” he murmurs. “A last meal together.”

They assemble the last provisions from the larder and eat in silence. Giorgos seems to search for words and cannot find them. He wipes his plate with his bread fussily, as if the action assuages his feelings. Then he looks up.

“Lose the beard, Yannis, to ease the transition — a different man in the mirror.”

Yannis takes off his cross and places it on the table. Giorgos sighs and takes it.

“Lay clothes are in the gatehouse, Yannis.”

“Thank you. What will happen to…?”

“We can build on your efforts. You were doing well, until—”

A lingering farewell full of sighs and silences and sentences unfinished. Giorgos stops to light a cigar, then fades into the mist followed by a trail of smoke.

***

While the Archimandrite read, Yannis imagined another version.

Giorgos takes from his satchel a scourge with many thongs of cowhide. From some museum of religious artefacts in Athens or Salonika? Yannis takes off his cross and hands it to him, then strips to the waist and clasps a pillar like Jesus.

Giorgios laughs. “You do it for yourself.”

He lights a cigar and watches while Yannis flails the scourge over one shoulder, then the other, as hard as he can. Suffer, Yannis, take your medicine like a man.

Giorgios watches, narrowing his eyes against the cigar smoke blown by the wind from the whipping. With a smile! And suddenly everything changes, like a landscape transformed when the sun breaks through clouds, and Yannis realises Giorgos knows he’ll punish himself so much harder than he would. And is enjoying it.

Yannis flings down the scourge, smearing blood on the planks, and laughs with relief to be no longer a monk but a man. He remembers that as crabs and spiders grow, they burst off their hard exterior and wait naked and vulnerable for a new one.

Yannis feels a surge of freedom. Stroll down to the village! Find Anastasia in Rhodes! Tell her it was Fotis who betrayed them. Go to Edirne and have the scroll translated.

Giorgios cringes and walks away.

***

Yannis suddenly realised that the real Giorgos was speaking.

“So far you have lifted floors in this refectory, the guest house, several passageways, and part of the cell wing. All of this has amounted to about thirty percent of the whole. You have replaced about twenty percent of the flooring. Good. Your reports are thorough, Yannis. I don’t have any doubts about them.”

“Thank you,” Yannis whispered, trying to decide whether he emphasised “them”.

Giorgios carried on turning pages and looked for somewhere to stub out his cigar. Yannis hurried to bring the usual metal bowl. The damascened pattern on the outside and green enamel inside would stay in his memory. Giorgos read on in silence, then looked up.

“You found a document in Turkish script?”

“It’s here, Father. Would you like to see it?”

Giorgos frowned. “Why would I want to see it?” He turned a page. “And a large area of rock chiselled flat. The former mountaintop.”

His gaze roamed the walls and ceiling. He seemed unusually lost in thought.

“They worked hard,” he said.

“Yes!”

“With primitive tools.”

The tangential conversation began to unnerve Yannis. He looked at the pages he penned in happier days. It was too much. He lifted the chain of his cross over his head and let it hang swaying before lowering it onto the table.

Giorgios widened his eyes. “Too heavy, Father?”

“It—”

“Right. You’re progressing faster than I expected, despite the, er, unfortunate hiccup. The lady fled to the fascists, I hear. Ah well, on with the motley, as they say. Who said it, Yannis?”

“It’s f-from Pagliacci. Italian opera.”

“Hmm. Not bad for Papists.”

He put away the report, ignored the cross, and strode out. Yannis followed like an abandoned bride.

In the doorway, a dark figure framed by strong sunlight, Giorgos said, “Better reserve my blessing. You’ll get one from Vangelis. Make your own confession to him soon. He’ll give you a hefty penance.” He laughed. “Hearing from Fotis about your depravity certainly put hairs on his chest. Keep up the good work. Bye!”

And he was gone, leaving the courtyard empty of life apart from the mimosas. Yannis closed the heavy door and turned back in.

The Mountains

Usually mist sealed in the mountaintop leaving only a modest precinct in which Yannis could ambulate. He wondered about whoever wrote the Turkish scroll. Was their heart moved by the stones of the monastery walls? Did the shapes of its windows, the helical thrust of the cypresses, and the startling raspberry pink of the bougainvillaeas move their spirits to song?

Or did they, like him, spend most of their time indoors? Did one of the words on the scroll – despite its sinuous elegance – mean dust?

If the mist ever cleared, Yannis would stand outside in the wind holding his hat from blowing away. Seeing mountains beyond mountains as far as the horizon, brought to life by the soaring and dipping shadows of racing cumulus, he wondered how God felt making them, on and on, always much the same, because He could think of nothing better to do.

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