Страница 36 из 132
The Abbot lay stretched out in the middle of the cell, his feet toward the door. Around him the waiting monks dozed, exhausted by their all-night vigil. The moribund, stretched out as he was on his mat, kept his face continually tensed and his eyes open, riveted on the gaping doorway. The seven-branched candelabrum was still next to his face. It illuminated the polished arch of his forehead, the insatiable eyes, the hawk-like nose, the pale blue lips and the long white beard which reached his waist and covered the naked, bony chest. The monks had thrown incense kneaded with dried rose petals onto the lighted coals of an earthenward censer, and perfume invaded the air.
The monk entered, forgot why he had done so and squatted on the threshold, between the two dogs.
The sun had the door in its grasp now and was trying to enter to touch the Abbot’s feet. The son of Mary stood outside, waiting. There was no sound save the whining of the two dogs and, in the distance, the slow rhythmic blows of the sledge on the anvil.
The visitor waited and waited. The day advanced; they had forgotten him. There had been a frost during the night, but now as he stood outside the cell he felt the delicious warmth of the morning sun enter his bones.
Suddenly the silence was broken by the voice of the monk who was doing sentry duty on the rock: “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
The monks in the Abbot’s cell awoke with a start and flew outside, leaving the Abbot all alone.
Nerving himself, the son of Mary advanced two steps, timidly, and stopped on the threshold. Inside was the calm of death, of immortality. The Abbot’s pale, slender feet gleamed, bathed in sunlight. A bee buzzed near the ceiling; a fuzzy black insect flitted about the seven lights, hopping from one to the next as though trying to select its crematorium.
Suddenly the Abbot stirred. Exerting all his strength, he raised his head-and at once the eyes popped out of his head, his mouth dropped open, his nostrils sniffed the air, twitching insatiably. The son of Mary put his hand to his heart, lips and forehead in the sign of greeting.
The Abbot’s lips moved. “You’ve come… you’ve come… you’ve come…” he murmured, so imperceptibly that the son of Mary did not hear. But a smile of unspeakable bliss spread over the Abbot’s severe, embittered face and straightway his eyes closed, the nostrils remained motionless, his mouth shut and the two hands which were crossed over his breast rolled one to the right and the other to the left and rested on the ground with open, upturned palms.
In the courtyard meanwhile, the two camels had knelt. The monks rushed forward to help the old rabbi dismount.
“Is he alive, is he still alive?” the young novice asked in anguished tones.
“He’s still breathing,” answered Father Habakkuk. “He sees and hears everything, but does not speak.”
The rabbi entered first, followed by the novice with the precious wallet containing the healer’s salves, herbs and magic amulets. The two black dogs, their tails between their legs, did not even turn their heads. Their necks were stretched out against the ground and they were yelping woefully, like human beings.
The rabbi heard them and shook his head. I’ve come too late, he reflected, but he did not speak.
He knelt by the Abbot’s side, leaned over his body and placed his hand on his heart. His lips were almost touching those of the Abbot.
“Too late,” he whispered. “I’ve come too late… Long may you live, Fathers!”
Crying out, the monks stooped and kissed the corpse, each according to his length of service, as prescribed by custom: Father Habakkuk the eyes, the remaining monks the beard and upturned palms, the novices the feet. And one of them took the Abbot’s crosier from the empty stall and laid it next to the holy remains.
The old rabbi knelt and regarded him, unable to tear away his eyes. What was this triumphant smile? What meaning had the mysterious gleam around the closed eyes? A sun, an unsetting sun, had fallen over this face and remained there. What was this sun?
He looked about him. The monks, still on their knees, were paying homage to the deceased; John, his lips glued to the Abbot’s feet, wept. The old rabbi shifted his glance from one monk to the next as though questioning them; and suddenly his eye was caught by the son of Mary standing motionless and tranquil in the back corner of the cell, his hands crossed on his breast. But spread over the whole of his face was the same calm, triumphant smile.
“Lord of Hosts, Adonai,” whispered the terrified rabbi, “will you never cease tempting my heart? Help my mind now to understand-and decide!”
The next day an angry blood-red sun ringed by a dark tempest bounded out of the sand. A fiery east wind arose from the desert; the world turned black. The monastery’s two ebony dogs tried to bark, but their mouths filled with sand and they remained still. The camels, glued to the ground, closed their eyes and waited.
Slowly, linked one to the next in a chain, the monks groped their way forward, struggling not to fall. Squashed together in a row and holding the Abbot’s remains tightly in their arms so that the wind would not take him from them, they proceeded, going to bury him. The desert swayed: rose and fell like the sea.
“It’s the desert wind, the breath of Jehovah,” murmured John, leaning his entire body against the son of Mary. “It withers every green leaf, dries up every spring, fills your mouth with sand. We’ll simply leave the sacred remains in a hollow, and the waves of sand will come to cover them up.”
The moment they passed over the monastery’s threshold the red-bearded blacksmith, his hammer over his shoulder, rose up black and enormous out of the swirling mist and looked at them for an instant, but immediately disappeared, enveloped by the sand. The son of Zebedee saw this ogre in the middle of the sandstorm. Terrified, he clutched his partner’s arm.
“Who was that?” he asked softly. “Did you see him?”
But the son of Mary did not reply. God arranges everything perfectly, and exactly as he desires, he reflected. Look how he brought Judas and me together-here in the desert, at the very ends of the earth. Well, then, Lord, let your will be done.
Bent over, they advanced all together, planting their feet in the burning sand. They tried to block their mouths and nostrils with the edge of their robes, but the fine sand had already descended to their throats and lungs. The wind suddenly took hold of Father Habakkuk, who was in the lead. It twirled him around and threw him down. The monks, blinded by the clouds of sand, walked over him. The desert whistled, the stones jingled; old Habakkuk uttered a hoarse cry, but no one heard.
Why shouldn’t Jehovah’s breath be the cool breeze which comes to us from the Great Sea? the son of Mary was thinking. He wanted to ask his companion but could not open his mouth. Why couldn’t the wind of Jehovah fill the dried-out wells of the desert with water? Why couldn’t the Lord love the green leaf and feel pity for men? Oh, if only one man could be found to approach him, fall at his feet and succeed, before being reduced to ashes, in telling him of man’s suffering, and of the suffering of the earth and of the green leaf!
Judas still stood in the low doorway of the isolated cell which the monks had given him as a workshop. Splitting with laughter, he watched the funeral procession which rolled and pitched, sank away and vanished at one moment, reappeared at the next. He had caught sight of the person he was hunting, and his dark eyes gleamed with pleasure. “Great is the God of Israel,” he whispered. “He arranges everything beautifully. He has brought the traitor right to the point of my knife.”
He went inside, stroking his mustache with delight. The cell was dark, but in a small furnace in the corner, the burning coals glowed fiercely. The low-rumped monk, half saint, half lunatic, was poking the fire, bellows in hand.