At long last, a track that was little more than a footpath branched off into the wadi to the right. It was very steep, in several places evolving into a stairway as it snaked down the sheer wall of the wadi, and in ten minutes we lost most of the altitude we had gained in the past two laborious hours. However, at the bottom of the wadi ran a deliciously cool, sweet stream, and we drank deeply and bathed our faces before starting up the path on the opposite side, towards the monastery that hung from a nearly perpendicular stone face.
If the Greek monastery we had visited at Mar Sabas was the product of mud wasps, I thought, the Russian St George’s had been constructed by cliff swallows. It was a thing of arches and windows balanced on an outcrop of striated rock, and looked as if the slightest earth tremor would flip it whole into the valley below; nonetheless, it was a lovely setting, for there was water here, perennial water, and if the higher reaches of the wadi were the standard mixture of rock and scrub, down here there were trees—not a great number, true, but they were actual, recognisable trees.
The clean air smelt of wet stone and green things, of incense and quiet, of sanctity and—flowers.
“Bees,” said Holmes thoughtfully as we passed a smattering of small, yellow blooms beside the path where the insects were working.
“Beehives,” said Holmes reflectively two hours later as we stood in the gardens with our monastic guide, watching the dusk draw in.
“Candles,” said Holmes happily later that night, when we were led into a small chapel ablaze with the light from half a thousand thin, brown tapers that gave off the strongest honey scent of any beeswax I have ever known. He plucked an unlit candle from a basket, held it to his nose, drew in a deep, slow breath, and went out of the chapel door with it in his hand. Outside on the dimly lit terrace, watched by our guide (who was by now completely baffled) and by a large cat (who, judging by the state of his ears, had retired to the monastery following a full life), Holmes took a small object from his robe and unwrapped it: Mikhail’s candle stub, which along with everything but his money and his knife had remained intact in his pockets. He worked the wax between his thumb and forefinger to warm it and increase the surface area, and then put it to his face. He smelt it deeply, then did the same to the candle he had just taken from the chapel, and again the stub. His bruised features relaxed into a look of satisfaction, and he turned to the uncomprehending and frankly apprehensive monk.
“I should like to see the abbot, please.”
SEVENTEEN
ظ
The bare necessities are basic; luxuries are secondary. Thus, Bedouins are basic, prior to cities and sedentary people.
Bedouins are clearly nearer to goodness than are sedentary people.
—
THE
Muqaddimah
OF IBN KHALDÛN
Abbot Mattias was a true creature of the desert, as hard, prickly, and unyielding as any bit of rock-rooted scrub we had avoided in the past weeks. Holmes took one look at him and abandoned all thought of pretence. The telling of our story, in which I played no individual rôle and which sounded more and more unlikely with each successive twist and turn, appeared to make absolutely no impression on the religious. He sat back in his heavy carved chair with his hands threaded together over the front of his habit, his eyes on Holmes, his only movement the occasional drowsy blink of his eyelids, like a lizard. The two candles on his table burnt down. Holmes talked. I sat. The abbot listened.
Holmes told him more or less everything, omitting only our true names and skirting around the details of what had happened to him at the villa north of Ram Allah. Eventually he had brought us from England up to the present, to our arrival at the monastery and the confirmation that Mikhail’s candle stub had almost certainly originated here. He then stopped talking. The abbot blinked slowly, waited for a moment as if to be certain that his guest had finished, and then unthreaded his clasped fingers and wrapped his hands instead along the fronts of the arm rests. The seat was transformed into a place of judgement.
“May I see your back, please,” he said.
Whatever Holmes had expected, it was not this. His face grew dark. There was no reading the abbot, absolutely no way of telling if he sought confirmation of Holmes’ story, wished to see if the injuries needed medical attention, or was simply curious. Perhaps he even thought to put Holmes to a test. If the last, he was remarkably perceptive: Holmes was not one to display willingly any signs of weakness or failure. I do not know what Abbot Mattias wanted, and I never asked Holmes how he perceived the request. I believe, however, that he saw it as a challenge, by a man in a superior position, and he responded the only way possible: He stood up and pulled his robe over his head.
I averted my eyes to study an age-dark painting of Virgin and Child, the maternal figure gazing out with the weight of the world’s suffering on her accepting shoulders. After what seemed a very long time, the rustle of Holmes’ clothing ceased and I heard the creak of leather that indicated Holmes’ weight settling back onto his chair. When I looked back at the abbot I had the shock of finding his eyes on me. And very discerning eyes they were.
“What of your companion?” he asked Holmes.
“He—”
“I am a woman,” I said. I thought this came as no surprise to the good father, and indeed, for a brief instant I imagined a gleam in the back of his dark eyes. He leant forward over his knees for a moment, then pushed himself upright and moved across the room to an ancient, worm-eaten cabinet of time-blackened wood. The moment he moved I realised how much older he was than I had thought. Eighty? Ninety? His voice, speaking English with a light Russian accent, was that of a man half his age.
He opened the cabinet and took out a bottle that had no label and had, judging by the scratches and wear, been re-used any number of times. His gnarled hands eased up the cork and he poured the thick, black-red wine into three squat and equally abraded glasses. One he placed on the desk next to me, the second near Holmes. The third he carried back to his chair and cupped in his hands, looking into it as if consulting an oracle.
“That you were maltreated by a man who uses the methods of our late oppressors, I take as a sign in your favour,” he said without preliminary. “That you were befriended by Dorothy Ruskin, the mad archaeologist of Jericho, I take as another indication of goodwill. That you walk with the men known as Ali and Mahmoud Hazr confirms the impression. And last, that you act as champion for Mikhail the Druse, whose death has left this world a lesser place, leaves no question.” He looked up, and his face cracked into a thousand wrinkles that took me a moment to recognise as a wry smile. “A monastery may not be of the world, but it most assuredly is in it. Particularly its abbot. What can I do for you?”
Holmes swallowed his wine, with more speed than manners, and began to speak; the abbot rose and went to his cabinet, bringing the wine back with him. He filled Holmes’ empty glass, and sat down again with the bottle close at hand.
“Sometime between Christmas and the New Year you had a visitor here,” Holmes was saying. “I do not know if he appeared as a brother from one of your other houses, or if he stole a habit from you, but I do know that when he left, he had a monk’s habit in his bag. He also helped himself to the candles from your chapel. Do you know this man?”