Monks
The monks are coming; the monks are always coming, some on great, slow orbits, appearing once or twice a year, some arriving more often; a knock on the door, a friendly greeting, and there he is, one of the great company of monks with his long beard and his rasam. This one we moved from the other side of the country; this one is visiting the church in our city; always there are monks – Orthodox monks, but Copts, too, sometimes Dominicans in white, sometimes Benedictines who, it was said, were allowed stereos in their monk’s cells.
They visit and bring their novices with them; they come, and we prepare great feasts. Travelling monks are allowed to break the rules of the fast, and so, even in Lent, we are allowed to eat meat when we eat with them. We are grateful! A feast, in the long days of Lent! Who are we? The head of our household, of course, and then those of us who are living there.
We eat, we are expected to eat as a household every night, those of us who live there. Out of curiosity will I serve the monks. I want to see what monks talk about, and I would prefer to serve them than sit amongst them. And so I serve them, bringing in a dish of this and taking out a dish of that. Meanwhile, the monks are talking; they are gregarious, even the hermits. They gossip; they are terrible gossips, and they speculate about movements in the church. And then, too, they talk seriously of projects undertaken. A translation; a transcription; a new website – yes, they have a great deal in common, a mission. They are a cadre, a club and belong together.
So our house sees their assemblies. So our house allows them to come together, staying monk with brother monk in our many bedrooms. In the mornings, I will often find a monk on the great sofas. ‘Oh it’s you -‘; I offer them some tea, ‘tea, father?’ Sometimes, in the evening, a blinking novice in an armchair. Today, tomorrow, five hundred years ago, in the house it doesn’t matter. It could be the middle ages; it could be 1850, but the monks are here and the monks are coming.
Bit Players
R. and I order the monks according to their helpfulness. We serve them; they sit, we bring them things, still they sit; the hours pass and they are sitting: these are the unhelpful monks. And the ones who help? Very few of them, it is true, but they come to the kitchen, they wash up, they never rest, they’ve guessed we are not part of the church or of any church, that we are out of their orbit and are here only by chance, strange meteorites. They do not ask what marooned us on this island; they respect our privacy. But now for a time, we are here together, so let us talk.
Yes, these are our favourite kinds of monks, jolly and bright eyed, ready to speak on all matters. But the other kind – those who accept without helping – we avoid them, we flee upstairs, we take refuge in the rooms of my friend the drunk where he surfs for porn and I play computer games. How did we end up here? I ask him, but here we are, regardless, scenery shifters, bit players in a drama that is not ours and that we don’t understand.
Aunts
Around the house, watching over it, the aunts. How many were there? They were the long deceased sisters of my landlord’s father, seamstresses and spinsters all of them, who watched over my landlord when he was young, and of whom he always spoke. Aunts in league with saints who, when they wanted something, would find the right saint and pray; so would what they wanted by given them.
Ask and you will receive, my landlord would say. He lived in a miraculous world, a world of miracles. He lived in a world where he was watched by God and by angels and saints. There were icons on our walls; the saints were there. And then the big icon of Jesus which my landlord gave to me, but which I never put up. My landlord was watched, he was seen and rested in the gaze of the divine.
Marvellous it was to see him stretched out at church, this big man. A tall man, a big man prostate before the altar. God was watching him, he knew that. God saw all, and when he could not sleep, he told me he had a discussion with God. How wonderful to be accompanied thus, I thought. How bereft we felt, R. and I, how unwatched!
Orslem
Guests passed through our house. I took a young Turk to the hills one sunny day. She had rediscovered her faith; it was becoming deeper. Fearing her arrival – she was known by all to be fearsome – we scrubbed the flat clean. But she knew us; she came with cleaning things and cleaned it again. Then she came down and spoke with my landlord about God. I remember, that day we went to the hills, buying a celebrity magazine. Why did you buy that trash? she said. Why do you need it?
As we walked she told me she had rented her body from God. ‘That’s why I have to look after it’. We reach the brow of the hill, and she speaks of her old life, her old romances. That is over now, she said on the top of Kinder Scout, and when I saw her again, years later, she was veiled and arrived with the husband she married six weeks before after the death of his wife in childbirth. They brought with them twin six week old boys and spoke of God to my landlord.
Eternity
How long did I live in the house? Long enough to know those changes that occur only in deep time – the cracks that appeared in the driveway, the door to the garden that sealed itself one day so it could never be opened, the caving in roof of the old stables at the back of the garden. Long enough to have felt my life entwined with the life of that house. I passed from room to room; I lived in most of them, I met every visitor, even those who appeared once a decade.
What happened? Everything. What happened – nothing at all; time passed – there was too much time, as I tried to finish a thesis and then publish papers, as I tried to find a job. I worked in the South for a year, but I came back. Years passed. Would I leave? Would I ever make my own life in the world? But the world was distant; it was as though I was falling in time, growing older but without knowing my age. I thought: inside I am old, but outside, I look the same as I ever did. Yes, inside I am aging, time is falling inside me, my age is incalculable.
Monks came and went, guests appeared and disappeared, each year the students would come round for dinner. We held a party when I got my Ph.D. and a grand dinner when I left first for a job in the South and then my job in the North. Everything happened; nothing happened. The icons watched me; monks came and went. Imbroglios in the church; new parish priests, new scandals. D. M. gave up church for a long time. His godsons visited daily and then visited no more. X. and Y. were divorced, now their children stayed with us everyday and my landlord walked them to and fro from school.
Whose life was I living? Too much God, R. and I agreed, too much church. How tired we were of hearing about the aunts! We wanted to live life on our own terms, but what could we do? So the years passed. We lived outside the world. How could we tell them?, R. and I said of those we knew outside the house. Who would believe us? No one would believe us; no one knew. When friends visited, my landlordwould dominate the conversation, showing off, speaking in great monologues. Friends would come and he would take over. Some would become friends of the house, which meant friends of my landlord Some would never come round again (‘that guy’s crazy!’).
Who could get a word in? The house was a stage and my landlord was the star. We were bit-players, backdrop to the conversations over which my landlord presided. Sometimes we were allowed to say a word; sometimes a tiny gap in the monologue would appear, but for the most part we were silent. What was there to say? And so we retired to the stables at the bottom of the garden. My landlord wouldn’t come there; we moaned and sighed and complained. What we said was what we were not allowed to say, so we blasphemed and swore.
The Phonecall
One night a phonecall, very late. A phonecall in the hall downstairs that my landlord answered, at about two in the morning. It was for me, from X. How many years had I waited for this phonecall! I had waited with a waiting that kept me young somewhere, that was still youth inside me. Youth amidst age and aging. And that waiting came forward in me then, that night. I listened out, as I always listened at that time. Could it be her? So it was, and after many years. But it was late and my landlord made his annoyance known. ‘We’re all in bed! You’ve just woken all of us up!’ From where had she rung? I didn’t know. She didn’t ring again, not for another few years, as I knew she wouldn’t. I thought: I’m not even allowed that phonecall. Even X. couldn’t reach me, not here.
My landlord didn’t like the sound of her, he said. Of course not; I was not to be allowed her; foolishness in love was not to be permitted. My landlord told me I would lose touch with my friends and lose touch with everyone. There was the house, only the house. Monks came and went, the students came once a year. Stories of the aunts were told and the saints venerated on appropriate days. The priest would come with his incense to bless our rooms. Great feasts were cooked, and in the summer we ate every night in the garden. Cracks appeared in the driveway and the door that use to open sealed itself shut forever. Eternity! How had we found ourselves, R. and I, living in eternity!
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