The Taste of Translation

  I felt the tremble of divine rapture fill this sacred space as he and his angel, two as one, worked to bring this fresh Kiria into being. For the sake of what he loved, clothed in nothing save his love, aware of nought but an angel’s voice, he had been tasked by our Lord to bring forth the love that dwells in spirit. He, the perfect lover become.

  I know that few are specially marked by such grace. But through his work, this selfsame grace flooded the work he created and as I thought on this fact, I imagined to see further – down a shimmering tunnel of time, vibrating with light, marked by glimpse after glimpse of love incarnate. Through his work, through her creation.

  No time had passed in the space where he was, yet dawn approached. With the first twitter of birds in the grey half-light which precedes the sun’s rise, he stood and stretched, returned from a journey into the closet of his heart, the icon the story of his voyage.

  I closed weary eyes on my watch, musing as I drifted to sleep of our order’s preparations to receive the holy mysteries – chanting liturgy amid clouds of incense before tasting the flesh, the blood of Christ. Ours was a mediated experience while I had witnessed his by direct gnosis. Writing his silent poetry, partaking of communion through painterly script.

  In this simple room, the grail was brought to his lips, over and over, and pure experience tasted. Here, in this space, there was no need to translate the language of love.

  I took my leave of him that time, the last time, returned to the estate of the widow Theodora to dedicate her chapel to the Virgin. Several of the monks attended me, the small nave was full of family, servants, farmhands.

  As I offered the sacraments and the brothers swung the fug of incense past my head, I saw afresh how he had conjured Kiria’s presence. Past smoke, past flickering candles, past the congregation, I looked at how the frescos melted into the quiet of dark walls, bodies lost in the mists of time. But her face, everywhere her face and veil slipped out from the shadows and stood clear in free sight. Everywhere, her eyes fixed each and every witness with the strength of her mother-love.

  I saw tears beneath the widow’s veil as she came to receive communion, tears that he had gifted her this space within heaven’s sight, a place in which to pray beneath an unblemished face of sky. But he could gift her no more, that she knew. And tears, yes, because she knew.

  Thirteen

  They say most return to our Lord in the spring. And so it is, even here. He left us on a day of soft light and budding crocus.

  By good fortune I was attending business at Agios Georgios on the day his donkey came down without saddlebag, without icon, without request for provisions, and nudged the novice who opened the gate, tugged and gnawed at his habit.

  They found him in his hut in high fever, brought him down, laid him in the infirmary. It was time to bid farewell to a broken body and allow his soul to fly free.

  Would you like me to conduct the rites? I whispered in his ear.

  Father, he coughed, breath hot and laboured, brow thick with sweat. You know too well that a funnelled route to God does not become the broad palette of my soul. I have felt His presence in all manner of places and times, by all manner of circumstance and experience. Again he coughed. At this hour of all hours I would not restrict His access by hearing you recite a single text.

  I smiled. However weak the body, thereto stronger grew his soul. One request he did have, however.

  Please, he said, hand trembling with the effort to clutch at my robes as I bent close to his words. Bring Her to me.

  My confusion was evident for already lying upon his heaving chest was the charcoal sketch from above his bed. Now little more than a sodden rag from the sweat of his fever, it melted into his skin and streaked his flesh.

  Look, I said, touching the parchment so he could hear its rustle, moving his hand across its skin. Look, she is right here.

  But he frowned, shook his head. No, he coughed. There is another. I would have Her with me.

  They found the icon on his table, incomplete, but the veil finished and for some reason, her face and eyes full-rendered. And I saw something new. He had varied the script this time, this last time. Upon a laurel branch in the upper corner was a dove, brightly white.

  I held the panel up to him. See? Here she is, I said, speaking as if to a saddened child who has mislaid his favourite comforter.

  He nodded. She comes with me to the grave. And fell into a fretful sleep.

  Later he roused and I could offer him a sip of water.

  She will come when it is time, he said. When it is time, He will send her. He looked out the window into a setting sun. She wants to come, he said. She has been waiting so very, very long.

  I sat by his bed and together we waited for the Lady to come.

  Some days it was of wiping his brow, bringing a cup to parched lips, laying a hand on the chill of his bones. Till it came at last, that day when there is no tomorrow here in this place, but another. It came at last, and he stared into it full, up into new life unknown.

  I made the sign of the cross, left the room, informed an orderly, and went out into the cloister yard. The air was fresh, scented by narcissus bloom.

  I looked into the sun and suddenly heard the cooing of a dove – extraordinary, years since I have seen one in these parts. But also how sad! In this season of lovers, when even small sparrows find mates and build nests, I heard her solitary lament. She was all alone.

  He had worn an amulet on a fine silver chain about his neck all the years I had known him. Most probably blessed at some holy place or other during his travels. He had never remarked.

  I returned to the cell where they had transferred his body, stripped bare, ready to wash. Father Lazarus murmured a litany and the brothers in attendance responded.

  I picked up the amulet from the bench by his bed. It was warm. Still. Warm as stone can never be, unless heated by the sun or plucked from a bed of glowing coals, or nestled against the skin of its life-filled wearer. But I was not mistaken. The stone was warm.

  Have you held it? I asked each of the brothers who washed him. All shook their heads. Has it been placed by the lamp? I enquired further. The room still chill this early morn.

  I returned the chain to his frigid neck, the sketch to his chest, folded his arms over the Lady, and then stood aside as they wrapped him in a simple shroud. Prayer at end, Father Lazarus joined us, held his lamp high. And I fancied I saw the stone glow in farewell, ready to return home to the earth.

  For two days he wandered the land, as St Macarius believed, like a bird seeking its nest, visiting the places he had been at peace.

  I do not know if his soul travelled far or if it hovered in the vicinity of his anchorite hut, but on the third day, we called halt to his wandering and laid him to rest. His bier was carried to the chapel and placed in front of a small table on which his last icon rested in a circlet of candles. I intoned:

  God of the spirits and all flesh, give rest to the soul of your servant in a place of light from which pain, sorrow and sighing have fled.

  I swung the incense censer and said:

  Lord O Lord, you are the relief of the troubled and the consolation of the mournful, redeemer of all the afflicted.

  My assistant poured blessed oil over his body while I turned to lay the censer on the table. But stopped.

  For I saw a tear, a single tear, fall from the eye of the Lady, trail across her lovely face and come to rest in a small depression in the beaten leaf of her golden veil.

  I could not go on. Father Lazarus had also seen and we stood together, two old men weeping.

  I took her up and laid her in the folds of his shroud, thought to hear a sigh, soft as the softest breath, part his lips while Lazarus pointed to the gentle smile which had somehow settled in the solemn bed of his beard.

  Under the laurel at the centre of the courtyard, after his coffin had been committed to the ground in the graveyard beyond the wall, we ate from the dish of koliva the brothers had
prepared and shared stories of his life, what we knew of his life and work, laughed and reminisced about his serenity, his patience, his gardening as much as his poet’s hand, and wondered sadly how his donkey felt without his faithful friend.

  Springtime – the birds joyous, the breeze fresh through new leaves, the fountain’s soft music rounding out each single note.

  Yet I heard another, above all, a coo, deep and resonant.

  Looking up into the laurel, I was reminded of her solitude as much as my sadness.

  Oh, how wrong I was! For a companion had found her on the branch, snow white as she and shy in his entreats.

  It was his soft call which had drawn my attention, and I watched as he came close and began the nibbled preening of her bowed and welcoming head.

  Fourteen

  There was a night at her villa in the city when the widow Theodora dreamt that the Lady wept, a vision so clear it shocked her from sleep. She lit a candle, brought it up to her travelling icon, and saw the truth of the dream rain down in tears of pure myrrh. And did not send ahead to enquire after its meaning, but set out from Candia on the long road south.

  She found me in the cloister yard of Agios Georgios beneath the fountain laurel and placed her request earnestly with head bowed and hands clasped.

  Please let him be buried in the graveyard of my family, by the chapel on the estate. Let him sleep for all time in the shadow of his work.

  But he has already been laid to rest here amongst the brothers of Agios Georgios who first offered him sanctuary, I protested. It is only a few days since we committed him to the earth.

  She chewed her lip, placed a gloved hand upon my forearm and squeezed hard.

  Please, she said again. Translate his remains on the fortieth day as they do with all true saints. The memory of him belongs in the place where he created a sanctuary for the Lady’s light.

  It was done as she had hoped. On the fortieth day, a long procession of brothers singing hymn after hymn trailed across the fields behind a horse-drawn bier. And after the service, we partook of fish, fresh-caught from the cove below the widow’s lands, for the makaria supper, eating from a single dish passed around the group, a picnic under olive trees in sight of a pacific sea.

  It seemed a fitting farewell to lay him above the vast rippled plain of his Vega. Theodora should have been well-pleased, but she ate little and did not join our conversation, sitting in contemplation of the blue sheet before her, watching far out it seemed, as if the thought of him beyond the farthest horizon would bring him skating back toward her across the waves.

  Fifteen

  I no longer leave the monastery of Agia Aikaterini here in the city. These days other brothers make the journey to Agios Georgios on my behalf, carrying the necessary ledgers to tally the stock at hand. Still we sit together when they return to discuss the accounts. I must prepare to pass on the abbot’s mantle to the one who will follow. It is time, the century has turned. I have made my allotted three score and ten.

  Often I ask after the widow Theodora. Indeed it is many years since we last met as she no longer visits Candia. Yet Brother Nikolas told a strange tale after his most recent excursion, for it seems she disappeared this last winter and, leaving no heirs, bequeathed the entire estate to our brotherhood.

  I say disappeared, for no body was found. Still the inquest determined death by drowning, certainly a misfortune, but where the Lord closes a door he opens a window and with the acquisition of fine pastures and ample orchards, we were certainly blessed.

  The story goes that she had taken to walking down through her fields to the rocky headland which lay beyond the estate, a jutting cliff above the southern sea. A fine excursion on a fine day but it seems it was her wont to make the walk each day, fair or foul. Her routine was to rise early, pray in the chapel, meet her farm manager, then set out toward the sea.

  The household staff knew her habits well – she would return for a late lunch and they had prepared her meal the same as every day. But this day she did not return and a farm hand was sent to fetch her. Perhaps she had misjudged the time. Simple enough for one often lost to reverie in the years since she had dwelt in seclusion on the estate.

  He followed the route she took, expecting to meet her along the path, yet reached the headland to find only a pair of curious goats where his mistress should have stood, and a fine veil of lemon silk floating in a stiff wind off the sea, torn and rent by a thorn bush in which it had jagged.

  The manager alerted, he confirmed it to be hers and a search was conducted but to no avail. A path down from the headland to a cove of coarse sand revealed footprints leading to the water’s edge, but anything more already lost to tide and time.

  Ah, the sadness of it all, how we can be ripped from worldly existence! And after Brother Nikolas left me, I sat by the fire, looked out the window to the laurel in the cloister yard.

  There is an old story – oh, perhaps I am being sentimental now – but it concerns the fate of poor Alcyone who pined for her Ceyx lost at sea. Each day she would walk down to the shore to await the return of his ship, but her prayers brought nought but suffering. Indeed he would come no more.

  It was Ovid who told the tale of her grief, how she threw herself into the waves, and how the gods in their pity transformed her into a bird, a swift-flown kingfisher that could skate the face of the water in search of her love. Later the gods resurrected Ceyx from his watery bed and set to with his metamorphosis. And her father, the god of the winds, agreed to still his voice seven days each year so she could make her nest on shore. Seven days each year across a winter-dark solstice when they could be together.

  An old story. Theodora could not requite her love, but still she felt its pain. I imagined her skimming the waves, her cry slicing the air. And wondered when she had taken to wearing a veil the colour of ripened lemons.

  Sixteen

  There is one way to enter this world, but many ways to leave. I know I approach the day without evening. I have meditated long and sought comfort from the Lady as I suffer this last affliction.

  Yes, she is with me, propped up on the window ledge at the end of my bed watching me with God-given eyes. I know she has heard my prayer and now flies fast on angels’ wings to take my petition to one far distant, whispering her own heart’s desire that he will heed my call.

  The brothers who attend this bed of disease bring her to me. I stroke her golden veil, kiss her holy lips, press her to my tremulous breast.

  But I cannot apprise these attendants of my last wish. They would not understand the needs of an old man or the contents of his wavering mind. They would shake their heads once out of sight, lament my unsound reason once out of earshot. And would place her, I have no doubt, in the chapel and light candles each anniversary of my death.

  No, it cannot be thus. So I pray he will come soon. Before I leave. For he would understand.

  Song of the Revelation

  He had left long years before to attend God’s work in another land. Certain this was the will of his Lord, he made his work with the devotion of one complete. He recited the Hours, read the Gospels and Apostles, joined his brothers in chapel to chant liturgy and celebrate the holy mysteries. Their community supported a large brotherhood, hosting many pilgrims and visitors.

  Long years had he heard the Lord whisper in his heart, flood his soul with surety that this, his path, had been well-chosen. Still he knew a day would come when the voice would call him further. Knew not when, knew not how, but had heeded when he had heard the Lord’s whisper: You will be called once more.

  A day came when a regular shipment from their brothers in Candia bore more than the usual provisions. Within velvet-lined chests were most-sacred icons to be raised on the monastery walls. And among these treasures was one by the hand of a master unknown to the brothers in Sinai.

  He, who made his stooped way about the hall, attending a daily task to replenish oil in lamps and place fresh candles in brass holders, could hear ex
cited murmurs issue from a group around the packed crates. These turned to expressions of amazement, the abbot’s voice above all:

  Holy Mother of God, Panagia Kardiotissa. But she is exquisite!

  Curiosity piqued, he came over. From within the chest shone light with a radiance beyond this world. Yet no matter how much the monks chattered, pointing to this or that feature of the icon, standing on tiptoe, peering over each other’s shoulder for a glimpse of the work in its cradle, none had touched the sacred object.

  Moving aside, they permitted their aged brother to bear witness to the sanctity of the moment, so he too could revel in the source of the light. Emanating from Her veil, it seemed, so often the muddy red of holiness through suffering, here lovingly rendered in gold leaf which trailed to her shoulders.

  He stared into Kiria’s face and walked into the halls of memory. Of eyes he had known, and a lemon veil drawn close across a sculpted cheek. He heard afresh the murmurs of his fellows – how the face, the hands, the colour of skin and shape of eyes, all had a look of home for these monks, these local brothers, these ones who knew what it was to greet one of their own ancestry.

  None of this could he have imagined when a charcoal sketch had been shown him beside a murmuring fountain in another place and time. None of this.

  Yet knowing none, knew it all.

  Now the Lord whispered: Here is your task. Right here.

  He had journeyed far, but knew his brother had journeyed farther.

  He is old, this man. Old, gnarled, hunched, but knows he has one last journey to make, and so returns to an isle of verdant abundance from the dusts and winds of desert wastes. Returns to farewell a brother, but finds only a grave of summer grasses. Summer grasses and a story from an abbot still living to tell it.

  The abbot thanks the Lord, thanks the Lady, and tells the man his dying wish. His own Kiria must be safely delivered to his fellows in the north, the brotherhood of his youth, and he trusts no other to attend the task.