The Nature of Work, Part 4

Before you get started here, read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

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The Search

“When Fotis did feel crushed by gloom and struggling, he did set a time limit on his work, strictly adhered to.”

Yannis nodded. “I, too.”

The mist had cleared for once and they were sitting in the inner courtyard by the wall of the Katholikon.

“But you are so quiet. You swear sometimes, but would cope much better if you did talk to your work as I did. ‘Come, Brother Mattock.’ ‘So there you are, Brother Trowel, you little devil.’”

Yannis was unable to hold back a smile.

“And did you find, Little Father, that if you thought happiness possible, but just out of reach, that was more painful than despair? You answer not. You’re envious because I preceded you in our mission.”

Yannis said, “You were told to find a sacred text hidden by Father Apostolis, but searched the grounds?”

“Of course. Oral tradition says that is where the marvellous revelation was buried.” 

Yannis jumped up and paced, rubbed his hand against the wall of the building, and looked up to the parapet to see a cumulus cloud emerge moving fast in the winds of heaven. His head cleared.

Fotis grinned. “So flustered. Did you wonder why Fotis did never reveal his presence? You looked so fierce I thought you might kill me for stealing your food. And Fotis did get much amusement watching you dig up floors, wasting your life. And fornicating.”

“Oral tradition has the document under a floor.”

“Try to convince yourself of that. Father Nicholas knew Giorgos as a novice. Called him tainted with worldly ambition and had no time for him. Enough of personalities. I want to know how you feel about work. What is your greatest delight in it?”

Yannis thought for a moment, watching the serrated horizon. “I suppose lying down to rest after hard labour.”

“Yes! A gentle vibration, a kind of purring, throughout one’s body.”

Yannis tried to imagine a purring in that shrunken body.

“Yes,” said Fotis, “the work was hard, digging compacted earth, lifting and re-laying paving stones, and often Fotis could not face it. And yet there were times when he was impatient to start, even wishing he was a chicken with a crop so he could get his breakfast down faster. Rather like your Anastasia, hmm?

“And have you noticed, Little Father, that when the going gets tough even ordinary objects look much more real? I mean, when Fotis did stop in despair and turn to some simple task — fixing a door neglected for months or dusting the Library shelves — he did notice the edges of things and the joints in the stonework, and at last was able to face his lifting and digging.”

Yannis suddenly felt tears come to his eyes, which he wiped away, embarrassed. This ungainly creature was indeed a brother. He had heard soldiers share experiences no civilian could imagine.

“Did you have obstacles with the work, Brother?”

“Oh yes. Stones in the earth did hinder the spade. Much time passed before Fotis did ask the boy to order a long steel bar to loosen them. Then ah, what pleasure! The longer the lasting difficulty, the greater the pleasure in solving it. And at least Fotis did work outdoors enjoying nature unlike poor Little Father.”

Yannis stood up, irritated. “But all to no avail.”

Fotis screwed up his eyes against the sun as he looked up at him. “No, no. To some avail. Fotis did find what he sought.”

“What? What?” The wall of the Katholikon echoed Yannis’s cries. “You said your work was wasted. What is it? Where is it? Where did you find it? Who did you tell?”

“Peace, peace,” Fotis murmured. “Dolcissimo. Answers. One: an artefact. Two: nearby. Three: among the stones of a soakaway for rainwater. Just there, look! Four: No-one, until you.”

Yannis’s eyes lost focus. He staggered and clutched at the wall for support. Sweat oozed from his forehead. He wiped it with the sleeve of his robe. So this was the moment so many shared. Inventors robbed of their patents. Scientists whose discoveries others took credit for. Working lives based on falsehoods. Soldiers sent ill-prepared to war by politicians hungry for prestige. 

Yannis sank to the floor and sat against the wall. The cold hard stone against his spine was welcome.

Fotis, in his weak voice, scoffed, “Oh the tragic hero of some opera: King of the Mist, Yannis Agonistes. No, Il Pagliaccio Monastico.”

He threw his beaker of water which hit the top of Yannis’s head, drenched him, and shattered on the pavement.

He said, “I baptise you Father Fool. Look down at those fragments, shattered clay like myself, and be enlightened. Like the nun who struggled to carry a bucket of water, until — hallelujah! — the bottom fell out.”

Rubbing his head, Yannis rushed away to get dry.

The Casket

“This is what you found, Brother?”

Yannis stood hunched, breathing heavily. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“And Little Father never gave it attention, even though it did look at him from the ikonostasis.”

“I gave it attention. Even dusted it. It’s empty. Where are the contents?”

“There were no contents.”

Yannis resisted a desire to shake the small grinning figure, realising to his chagrin that his desire to punish arose from the old monk’s sheer helplessness. Fotis reached a stick-like arm towards Yannis’s chest.

“Since you believe not Fotis, lend me your pectoral cross. Thank you.” Sandwiching the cross between fleshless palms he said, “When Fotis did find the casket it was empty. He swears this by the Holy Trinity, Saint Panteleimon, Saint Basil, Saint Athanasius, Saint—”

“Yes, yes. All right. Where and when did you find it?”

“Among the roots of a cypress. Before Little Father did arrive, but after Fotis was forgotten.”

“So no one knew.”

“One can reap satisfaction from success even when no one else knows of it.” He made a sound like a death rattle clearly meant as a chuckle. “And in the case of failure such as yours, better that no one knows.”

Yannis sat holding the casket on his knee. The bone surface with its blue and ivory panels warmed to his hands. He waited for his heart rate to subside and concentrated on his breathing. The ancient monk struggled upright against the pillows and raised one skeletal hand with the forefinger extended, an admonitory gesture.

“And the emptiness of the casket, Little Father, is the great revelation of Apostolis, the hevel of your favourite writer Ecclesiastes, that all our desires and ambitions are ‘mere breath’, and—” He paused to suck in air, “and that even our desire for wisdom is ‘chasing the wind’. Please bring Fotis more water.”

Yannis put the casket on a table and brought a fresh beaker.

“Don’t break this one,” he said mildly as Fotis gulped.

The ancient monk wiped his mouth on the blanket and grinned.

“So, Little Father, when you agonise about Fotis finding it first, when you measure your failure against his success, remember that hevel.”

Yannis closed his eyes and remembered his feelings of just half an hour ago, the burning sensation on his face and neck, tightness in chest and stomach, irregular breathing — the stigmata of envy. Then opened his eyes, took the box back on his knee, and looked steadily at Fotis.

“These fine Teremok caskets,” he said, “were made in Archangel Province in Russia from the tusks of walrus and mammoth.” He traced the delicate painted engraving with his finger. “I was told about them as a novice. Twelve were sent as a gift from the Patriarch of Moscow to our Patriarch.”

Fotis stared as if the box might fly away. “When? When?” he croaked.

“End of the seventeenth century. Not before. Long after the time of Selim the Grim. Documents record it.”

Fotis appeared to shrink.

Yannis went on calmly. “This was probably buried during the War of Independence. Or some modern emergency.” He retrieved his cross with a brusque gesture.

“You should have emerged and spoken to me, Brother. But don’t be downhearted. As you say, though we ‘do what we do with all our might’ as Ecclesiastes has it, all our efforts are indeed ‘mere breath’ and success and failure equally empty.”

***

That was Wednesday.

On Friday, summoned by Anastasia, Father Vangelis arrived from the village, breathless and disapproving, his spotty face and unsatisfactory beard bathed in sweat. After making a show of kissing the ikons, he followed Yannis to Fotis’s store room, nearly treading on his heels.

“I hope you haven’t offered confession,” he said.

“You know I’m not allowed, Father.”

At the door he said, “Leave us.”

Yannis went with slow steps to the Katholikon, lit the largest candle, and stood in silence expecting his thoughts to clamour, but found them oddly muted. He allowed his gaze to rest undistracted on the intricate pattern on the floor tiles. Time flowed easily, until he heard rapid footsteps and looked out to see Vangelis stride, almost run, toward the gatehouse, robe flying.

He went back to the store room and thought Fotis unaware of his arrival but when he sat by the bedside a frail arm moved towards him and spiny fingers held his wrist. The ancient monk stirred and opened his eyes with the lost look of those near death.

“What came over Father Vangelis?” Yannis asked.

Fotis’s eyes closed again. He murmured, “Fotis did fail at living but succeeds at dying.”

From the slit of a mouth came an unexpected sound, surprisingly clear and tuneful. Yannis recognized the song “O Menousis.” During the second verse, it faded out and Yannis ascertained that in his final project, Fotis had indeed succeeded.

Read the final Part.

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