Instalment 6: In Mr. Bean's Footsteps – Part Two (Mount Athos) London to Thessaloniki (or Vice Versa)

Instalment 6 of 7

The big bluff: Nausea, St. Luke and the Panagia Portaitissa

From Last Week

Being one day ‘paying’ guests (though long stays were expected to roll up their sleeves) meant there were no plates to wash, so we sauntered out into the sunshine to await our guided tour of the Monastery’s treasures. The world was sweet and I distinctly remember, despite the trials recently endured, how lucky I was to be there in that special moment in time, enjoying the impressive instant: kind hospitality, homemade bread, tomatoes and cheese, sunshine on one’s back and not a care in the world for a few hours at least. How little did I know.

The Arhondaris, presently joins us at the door to the Katholicon (the conventual church in the centre of a monastery), beckoning us in.

We enter the dark interior, and it is some time before my eyes adjust from the brilliance outside, and I am able to discern shapes and outlines. My iris is a film of iridescent star bursts which slowly melt away into the dark golden hues of Byzantine Icons, glimmering under the flicker of pyramids of beeswax candles, dotted around the inner sanctotum, highlighting hidden alcoves and throwing recessed niches into relief.

I am taking all this in, and enjoying the cool and sudden solemnity, a hushing of the outside world. Monk Gandalf, makes an announcement, but my attention is half given, lost as I am an in the sudden change of ambiance.

“Normally I would give this tour myself, but today there is a Medieval Art Historian from the island of Malta in our midst” he announces.

As soon as he mentions the word ‘Malta’, I abruptly check out from my reverie. Could it be possible?, wow! what an unlikely coincidence, another Malteser here, right here, right now? I quickly scan the eclectic group encircled around Gandalf, for the most olive skinned contender of synchronicity personified, but nobody immediately fits the bill.

“I would be honoured, if he gave this tour, in my stead. I will be very interested to see what he has to say about  our famous Icons.” The Arhondaris continues.

My curiosity is piqued. Earlier in the courtyard outside, I had not picked up on the nuances of the Maltese accent. There is, I later recall, a mischievous glint in Gandalf’s eyes.  At this particular point in time, however, it is lost on me.  I crane my neck backwards, there is one tall, stooped, bespectacled and genteel looking, elderly gentleman, grey hair, side-parted. He seems to best tick off the stereotypical, intellectual-in-appearance check list. Only the bow-tie is missing. However his skin tone is more pasty Teutonic than Mediterranean, which signifies nothing really. But, the History/Art department at Malta University, like the Island itself, is a minuscule gold fish bowl and this man has not lectured me, of this I’m sure. So who..?

“There is always something new to learn, and I enjoy rediscovering, our religious and cultural heritage through the eyes of an outsider, especially from a fellow Islander,  so please Mr. Bugeja, I now kindly invite you to take the floor.”

What?!? The odds of another Maltese person on Mount Athos, in the same monastery, on the same day , responding to the same surname as myself, are so unlikely, I am beyond incredulous.

Simultaneously, well before, I become acutely conscious of it, I feel a slight nauseous spreading in the pit of my stomach. I yank my head back to Gandalf. His right hand is outstretched towards me. This can’t be right. Bewildered, I look behind me. As expected there is no-one lurking there. I would have sensed their presence. I suddenly feel sick. My mind acknowledges my stomach. I turn quickly, first left than right. Everybody is staring enquiringly at me. Beads of perspiration sprout from my brow. This can’t be. NO! NO! My head begins to swim. The ground feels shaky. The beeswax candles make everything blurred again. Whilst my mind is reeling with the implications of the trap laid, the realisation dawns too late. The smirking, the chuckling. Gandalf had become a sadistic accomplice in my duplicity. This is a test. I must, no! I HAVE to rise to the occasion, I need to gain control fast. The situation requires instant subjugation of dizziness and nerves.

In retrospect, it was only the glib and boldness of youth that enabled me to take control of the situation so fast and with such sleight of hand. Youth lives for the day, is full of impetuous self-confidence, is rash, spontaneous and daring in its decision making. Self doubt, a need for stability and knowing where one stands comes with the arthritic fixity of age.

I had just turned 22 and this was no time to hesitate. Smoothing my damp palms on my loose trousers, hoping they wouldn’t leave any tell tale marks, I took centre stage, straightening my shoulder sand throwing my head back. I certainly didn’t look the part, dishevelled as I was, but at least I had to give my very best shot at acting it. This was do or die. Lose face so terribly and I would have to give up my hard won bed for the night. That wasn’t going to happen as long as I had bluff on my side and bluff it I was going to. In any case the worst I could do, was make out I was an absent minded professor and well I already looked the part, didn’t I?

“You are too kind” I managed to find it in me to say, as I stared Gandalf in the eye, meanwhile taking his place. “ It would only be presumptuous of me to attempt a similar tour to the one you might give, I have only recently been acquainted with the wealth of art contained in such close quarters on Mount Athos”

Good one Warren!, Presumptuous, nice touch, where did that come from?, so what next? OK keep thinking, work it, work it! Where’s the trap door? OK some Byzantine appropriate jargon, retrieve, retrieve,..ahh yes Triptych, Diptych, wasn’t that a painting with hinges in two parts..OK I espy one..take them there..

This was my mind on speed ..and then the thought ‘nice touch’ led me to think of the phrasal verb ‘touch on’… so…springboard provided…isn’t that how thoughts unravel from each other?

“I ..ehhemm..mmmhh (clear throat, gulp, almost stutter, then rein it in Warren!)ww will therefore just touch upon the highlights of your collection that can be ge--eeneralized to art conventions of the period influencing Western technique. Over there for example we can view an…an exemplary triptych…if you could please follow me…”

What on earth was I babbling on about, and where was this torrent of mumbo jumbo coming from..well at least it sounded good and I was buying time wasn’t I? Thank God for triptychs and my recent and only credit in Medieval Art..how was I going to wing this..OK..no time to go down that road…so they are walking toward you, ready to meet you half way at least, so think, think..a few more steps and you will have to be ready to spout something else.

As I summoned them toward me, I was attempting as nonchalantly as possible to rapidly scan my surroundings, as in x-ray vision, trying to glean anything I could use or that could serve me. All my senses where heightened, sharp and focused. The extraneous was immediately discarded, intensely alert as I was to every object, slant of light, shuffle of footsteps.  

Giotto

“So,  I began as soon as my audience had assembled around me, “What we can see in front of us, is a fine example of a Triptych, consisting of a larger central panel with two side wings, commonly used as an altar piece and connected together by hinges. A Byzantine and later Medieval convention that continued to be employed in the art of the early Renaissance ,by artists such as Giotto.”

Remember to breathe. I surreptitiously flash a cursory glance at my audience, from beneath my eyelashes,  as I come up for air. This is all very basic and text book lifted word for word from the one and only sample essay, I had prepared for my exam . So far I had not revealed anything enlightening, but on the other hand, no one was fidgeting.

 “The central panel as you can see is larger than the side panels”, I continued, stating the obvious. “ This introduces the central theme of the birth of the infant Jesus."

Descriptions you see, always buy more time and anyway people like to have their perception of reality confirmed, even if again, I was stating the painfully apparent. At this point ,I turned sideways, slightly giving part of my back to the audience, peering as it were at the painting, as if I could fathom edifying signs and signifiers within the brushstrokes, which being all the better immersed and absorbed in it, I could communicate to the assembled. In actual fact, I was just as hopeful as my audience and certainly no better informed. Stooping as if to get a better look at the painting and clasping my hands behind my back was just a prop, an assumed scholarly stance, willing the painting to divulge its secrets by being proxemically closer acquainted and; my mind, to be prompted and inspired into speech.  I would continue with the obvious I decided. Clearing my throat I resumed the bluff parade.

“The Madonna’s expression is bathed in pathos as she looks down at the future messiah cradling in her arms. However the composition is heavily styli zed and there is a certain rigidity in the pose (here I jab at the icon, following the contours of a particularly stiff and unnaturally looking  baby Jesus, who looks like a shrunken man child, stopping  millimetres short of actually puncturing the painting) which appears two dimensional. As we can see, the Byzantine aesthetic is abstract and anti-naturalistic in character,  concerned predominantly with the translation of theological concepts into artistic expression, whilst  hmmm, distancing itself from the body focused and more naturalised representation of classical antiquity”.

Didn’t that sound professional? Hadn’t I just saved my bacon? The last sentence I had thankfully remembered  and lifted intact from the guide book, for I didn’t recall covering Byzantine art in much detail, if at all in my credit on Medieval art at University, so apart from something about the importance of Icons ( which I had to hold onto for later),  I was doomed.  It was back to triptychs or bust for me.

“The word triptych has its origins in the Greeek 'triptykhos' meaning three-layered. Each panel is connected to the other and often ..errr…represents a three-act dramatic structure with a beginning, a middle and an end. Hmmm..yess…The three fold nature reflects the religious symbolism of the number three and frequently references the holy trinity. Also the artist may establish visual coherency by employing a unified background…. such as a landscape or sky in each panel and amalgamating similar hues and ehhh…pigments.( Long pause….time to lower my shoulders, and appear less stressed).In this particular Triptych we have in front of us, each panel depicts episodes in the New Testament, appertaining to the early life of Jesus Christ. Errr…In the first panel Mary the mother of God visits her sister Elizabeth who can be observed looking towards the Messiah in the central panel.”

At this point I almost crash into the painting in my enthusiasm. I am on a roll thanks be to God and all the saints above.

“In the final panel, on the right, the infant Jesus, is being presented to the elders in the temple, and Simeon is positioned on the far right so his profile turns both to the holy family in the temple but also to the central figures in the middle panel.”

 I just hope the guy was actually called Simeon, I can’t be sure. My Catholic School education has meant that I am quite familiar with every bit-part character in the entire bible, such was the drumming in of religion at every available opportunity. I’m sure we counted in white doves too, during maths. But I haven’t rehearsed and my ‘tour’ is being conducted under duress, besides, I am and was never good with names. Simon or what’s his name, however, is the least of my problems right now. I have no idea whatsoever, who had painted the triptych I was describing, or when or where it was painted. Furthermore I was done with the topic, the painting and the period. Yet I was damned if I was going to invite any questions from the floor to prolong the torture, even though that would have enabled me to purchase more precious time.  But that would have been inviting suicide. In all likelihood I wouldn’t be able to answer any of the questions posed. No, I needed to get away from the painting, even though I was finding it hard to move, rooted to the spot, by a sense of comfort and salvation which the painting now signified for me. I felt as reluctant to move as possibly an early Christian would have, once the Romans had got a whiff of which catacombs they were hiding in. Nevertheless my reserves of bluff were nearing exhaustion. Once more, I needed to think fast. A miracle would also do quite nicely. 

At this critical juncture, I finally dared to finally look in the Arhondaris’s direction. The joke was over,  he had but me on the spot, fair enough, I could forgive him this, but now would he not be satisfied with how I had been faring?, would he give me more reel with which to hang myself or would he come forward in my hour of need, offering to take over?, hadn’t I suffered enough?` But, Gandalf was simply nodding impassively at what I had said, his head cocked slightly to the side. Could he really be oblivious to my fate? Presumably he was either, really in fact incredibly sadistic, or I had misread his body language and he had been taken in by my interview spiel, hook, line and slinker, very much to my detriment.

In any case there was no assistance forthcoming from that quarter. Disgruntled, I had to change tactics. I decided to play the Icon card..but how to stretch it into a paragraph? I knew that Religious Iconography lay at the heart of Byzantine and Orthodox art. In fact I had alluded to as much, and the fact was self evident all around us. There must have been over a hundred Icons displayed in that Church alone. I was aware that there were canons and schools of representation ensuring that the same likeness of a saint, was passed on from artist to artist. This I had picked up upon during the aforementioned visit to the hanging monasteries of Meteora, but I didn’t know  enough about the subject and I didn’t want to stutter and splutter, running out of con fuel whilst barely having introduced the digression. No that wouldn’t do. 

Somehow, somewhere up, in the inner recesses of memory, my Roman analogy rang a bell,  setting off a sequence of synaptic  neuron transmissions that proved to be my salvation. The catacombs reminded me of my father’s home town, Rabat in Malta, where early Christians took refuge in a warren of underground tunnels, hiding from Roman persecution.  Rabat was where St. Paul, who was shipwrecked off the coast of Malta in 60 AD, and who was responsible for the subsequent evangelization of the Islands, was imprisoned. Compulsory catheticism lessons in preparation for my first holy communion had ensured that I could locate the exact biblical reference. St Luke had alluded to St. Paul’s visit in passing in his take on the Acts of the Apostles (XXVIII). St Paul is a demi god on Malta. His feast day rules the roost, and Maltesers are eternally grateful to St. Luke for putting this tiny geographical dot on the world map and for the briefest of citations (but what a palpable citation!) in the bestseller of all time.

Now all these connections and free associations, one thought leading and spilling onto the next, were being made at break neck speed, culminating in my Eureka moment. In similar vein to Paul of Tarsus (way before he became a saint) on his way to Damascus, a flash of blinding white insight, illuminated a dormant, priceless link of information, lazily lying idle in the junk yard of discarded facts in brain. I had been in peril of drowning and had now just been thrown a life jacket.  Unlike PauI, I didn’t fall off my horse literally, but I would have, had I had one. Yess!! YesSS!! YESSSSS!!!

I will explain:  just before my visit to Greece I had attended a wedding which was celebrated in a grotto, hitherto undiscovered (by myself that is), situated beneath the fortified parish church of Mellieha, a coastal town on a high promontory above stretches of white sand below. The grotto was unusual in a predominantly Baroque Malta, in that the altar was surrounded by a semi circular, burnished, and golden, Byzantinesque mosaic .  The décor had been carefully selected to highlight and offset  a rare Icon of the Black Madonna and Child, with a reputation for being miraculous and said to have been painted by St. Luke. The Icon had stuck in my memory by virtue of, for one, being in the byzantine style and secondly because of the colour of the Madonna’s skin, an atypical and uncommon representation of the usually fair skinned , Rubenesque and flowing auburn locked, Rococo portraits and statues of the saint to be found on Malta.

Now, Oh fortuna benedetta! ( blessed fortune), oh! Saving Grace how sweet the sound, blow me over, if Iviron wasn’t renowned on Athos, for its very own miraculous Black Madonna, also said to be painted by St. Luke, according to the Sacred Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This constituted that desperately, delicious tidbit of information - sugarcane juice in the desert, manna from the sky..absolute deliverance if you get my drift, clichés excused - a coincidence sent from heaven to save my ass (OK let me tone it down to my behind) big time!

It is true that the Iberian monastery of Iviron, founded in  the year 980AD, was famed for its library, containing approximately 2,000 manuscripts, 15 liturgical scrolls  and 15,000 printed works, in Georgian, Greek, Hebrew and Latin. The monastery also exhibited the relics of more canonised saints than any other on Mount Athos and stashed away amongst its accumulated treasures; was a 7-branched candelabra in the shape of a lemon tree, made of gold and silver, a gift from the Greeks of Moscow in 1807. My guide book had perfunctorily listed these facts, but had I remembered any of them? Not! 

What had interested me though, was the mention of an Icon entitled ‘Panagia Portaitissa’, the name itself sounded dramatic as in the ‘portrait most portrait’ or ‘a portable panegyric’, which wasn’t too far off the mark actually. It had intimations of la Serenissima, and after all, did not latter day Byzantium begin in Venice and Ravenna? The Icon was Iviron’s most coveted possession, and featured a curious scar on the Virgin Mary’s right cheek. Apparently the icon had been stabbed by an overzealous soldier in Nicaea during a purge of religious Iconography (Iconoclasm) under the fundamentalist Emperor Theophilus (829–842). Much affronted, and determined to give that soldier a good shock, blood, miraculously, is said to have flowed from the gash in the Icon’s cheek.

So Panagia to the rescue, but where was it? Renamed ‘Keeper of the Gates’ (the literal translation of Panagia Portaitissa), the Icon had a reputation for disappearing from the chapel it had been placed in, only to be found hanging on the gates of the monastery each time. This is where the Icon intended to stay put,  not being content to be guarded by the monks , but desiring a more active role as protectress of the enclave. Ostensibly, the Theotokos (Mother of God) confirmed this notion in a dream to St. Gabriel , who  in turn saw it fit to advise a few of the monks. Orders from above.  

Not your average Icon and thank God for that, because it had wedged itself in my memory. This was just the ticket I needed to get me out of the predicament I was in. Again, if I had begun talking about the Panagia with no conduit to escape, my presentation would have fizzled out ignominiously, in no time at all. I would have just been able to recount the tale of the gash and that was it. Hardly ‘A’  level Art  let alone academia. But now I had a plan, act two to my repertoire. And now back to my audience:

“The Byzantine aesthetic found its widespread.. expression via the medium of the Icon, often small in size and portable. Canons of representation  and artisan schools laid down specific guidelines as to  layout, style and the features of the Saint being depicted. Hmmm…Artistic endeavour was less important than the depth of spiritual sentiment the painting expressed and uhmmm… generated. This was not without peril,  because  in the eyes of religious purists no inanimate combination of pigment and wood could represent the world of spirit. Jesus was only present in the Eucharist and in the wine consumed during religious service. The material itself was dead without soul.”

“One such victim of the second wave of Iconoclasm, is this Monastery’s very own Panagia Portaitissa……”

And here I recounted the Icon’s history, its role as protector of the monastery, interceder of miracles via the Theotokos  and all of the above, which brought me back to its exact location. Turning to the Gandalf, with more than an element of self-satisfaction I asked condescendingly:

“Dear Arhondaris, if you may kindly guide us right now to the exact site of this illustrious Icon, I have an interesting anecdote to share”

By curtly nodding and deferring to him I managed to obscure the fact that I had no idea of the whereabouts of the Icon. I had not especially noticed any Icon on the main gate but then I hadn’t paid any specific attention and for all I knew there might be a dozen dangling from each wrought iron post. It could be anywhere in this church or be housed in one of the monastery’s many chapels consecrated for the specific purpose of the Icon’s veneration and safeguarding (not that the Madonna would approve, if the latter proved to be the case). Locating this Icon would also happily waste time and allow me to compose myself further and hone my escape plan.

I did not need to persuade the Arhondaris. The Icon was the expected highlight and climax of each tour, and all the ‘pilgrims’ were I presumed, curious to check the scar on the Theotokos’s cheek,  out for themselves. It was unusual, I would have guessed, though to refer to the Panagia Portaitissa in media res; so soon in the presentation with minimal foreplay, but I wanted out of this farce and this was my decoy.

Gandalf obliged and we were soon trailing him outside. The harsh and bright exterior sunlight provided intimations of St. Paul again. It may not have blinded us, but the dazzling brilliance had the momentary effect of stunning  one’s thoughts.

The Panagia Portaitissa was in fact, apparently deemed too precious an Icon to be left outside, stuck on the gates and was currently being kept in a chapel in the courtyard across from the main church. Once outside I tried to maintain my distance from the other pilgrims discouraging familiarity and to avoid having to divulge any personal information  appertaining to my academic background primarily. I decided it best to engage the Arhondaris in conversation as we walked abreast, also preventing other pilgrims from asking a question which he might direct at me. Gazing wistfully at the archway I had originally entered the Monastery in, I  entertained brief but wild fantasies of escape. Sleeping in a tree at night in the forest would be infinitesimally  preferable to this fine torture that had been inflicted upon me. Why do humans do this to another? It is although the body requires a continual influx of fight or flight hormones and now that there are no beasts to run away from, we require subtle mind games and traffic jams to release adrenalin into our bloodstreams. They say love makes the world go round. More like fear I say.

I decided to stick to generalities with the Arhondaris, asking him how long the tours normally took and if he gave one each day and if he talked about the same Icons each time or pointed out different objects and their history/spiritual significance, depending on the guests present. I didn’t want to sound too eager but had my ears wide open for any morsel of information I could use in my presentation. In any case we didn’t have far to walk, and our conversation didn’t last long. I had to take centre stage once again in front of the Panagia Portaitissa. The scar was barely discernible as the Icon’s skin colour was made darker still by a patina of age and possibly varnish. I invited the pilgrims to take a closer look at the painting as I had just done. After dispensing with the few facts I had retained about the Icon, I then introduced the anecdote  which I hoped was going to save my bacon.

“The Panagia Portraitissa is of unusual significance to me”, I began. “On the Island of Malta, where I come from, we have our very own Sister Panagia, said to have also been painted by St. Luke and featuring the black Madonna.” 

At this point, the Arhondaris himself leaned further in, I don’t think he had been expecting this or if he had was feigning his curiosity. I knew I had my audience in the palm of my hand just then and I had to milk it to my absolute advantage. There was only one available route of safety to take. I had to change the subject, lead them gently, unawares,  away from the world of  two dimensional and rigid Orthodox Iconography and to my own Mediterranean baroque background of fleshy, sensual and corpulent Catholic saints and sinners. So bit by bit I reeled them in. First by describing where the Maltese black Madonna was located, then by comparing the two paintings. This I did in situ, I had never seen the Panagia before, and had only a vague hazy recollection of the Maltese version, so I just did a Mr. Bean on the spot, stated the obvious, simply describing what I was seeing and then counting on the odds that nobody had seen the Maltese version, and this being in the days before Google on tap, I would be well out of their orbit if they looked it up (come to think of it, how much less easier it is too bluff these days with smart phones). So bar the ‘insignificant’ scar, the Icon in Mellieha, Malta was a near replica according to my comparison. Having established this fact, I then went on to make another Beanesque facsimile vapidity, something about a mother’s protective love for her son and the foreshadowing of future sorrow in the expression on the Madonna’s face, a predicament common to most mothers. Love , sorrow and pain being an unhappy ménage-a-trois, inherent in the human condition from birth until death.

If I recall correctly, I went as far to venture a guess as to the origin of choice for the Madonna’s skin colour,  briefly citing the connection with the forgotten early Christian and  ancient Jewish Ethiopian communities, who settled further inland, following waves of successive pogroms. The Black Theokotos represented a universal mother they could relate to . Another raison –d-etre,  presented itself in the flight to Egypt where the Essene Tribes (of which Mary, the Mother of Jesus was a member) had also settled. The Black Madonna now became a Christian candidate for Isis. These theories all came from the top of my head, unsubstantiated by hard evidence, merely a hotchpotch of hypothesis harvested from several books I had read on the early life of Jesus. I went to anchor my theories on the selection of ethnicity with a gauche general statement about the unlikelihood of a Middle Eastern woman having snow white skin anyway. No sooner uttered, I decided that I was diving deep into dangerous waters and needed to make a  quick turnabout back to land and more grounded observation. 

Steering the conversation back to Malta together with St. Luke and St. Paul, seemed a safer course to sail, and I resolved to shipwreck my presentation on these shores with a lengthy digression on how Malta became Christian. Here I was on secure territory and could invite and encourage questions from the floor. Malta was an unknown entity for many of the pilgrims present, so the remainder of my presentation comprised a synopsis of the Island’s long and variegated history, from the Neolithic temples to British Colonial Rule, via village festas, statues of patron saints being carried aloft by penitent parishioners, pyrotechnics and partisan politics. For the main, the treasures of Iviron and their secrets remained unexposed to the scrutiny of scholars during my presentation that day. However my presumed  reputation as Medieval scholar had escaped unscathed and I could calmly suppose that  I had rightfully earned my supper and overnight stay that evening.  Nonetheless I would be giving my fellow pilgrims a wide berth for the rest of the day.

Final Instalment out next week

Instalment 5: In Mr. Bean's Footsteps – Part Two (Mount Athos) London to Thessaloniki (or Vice Versa)

Instalment 5 of 7
A white lie, Refectory rules, and the calm before the storm

From last week

A softly spoken but authoritative ‘Next!’ interrupts my reverie. One pilgrim exists leaving the door ajar. The pilgrim who is sitting next to David looks immensely relieved and jumps up. However he merely accompanies the other guy, so that means it is my turn to go in, and I have not had any chance to speak to David about his strategy of stay.

Now read on...

The Arhondaris, beckons me in and dips his open palm to a seat, where I am to sit down in front of his desk. I curl my fingers over each other in my lap, hoping for illumination. I daren’t speak first. In fact I settle on speaking as little as possible, careful not to give anything away, imagining a blank screen descending over my mind shuttering it, afraid that some power of spiritual solitude has enabled the guest monk to read minds. He requests to see my letter of permit and writes down my name. He asks me where I am from and if I have travelled to Greece by myself. When I mention Malta he shows a brief flicker of interest, tells me that he has always wanted to visit Malta and has read about the Islands’ history. Malta seems to be my good luck visa charm.

Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta

He mentions the Knights of St. John and their connection with Rhodes and talks about the Grand Harbour on the eastern side of Malta’s Capital. He describes how it was bombarded during the Second World War by the Axis powers, and tells me his home town suffered a similar fate. I really warm up to this guest monk at this point. It is not often that anybody knows anything about my homeland, being the tiny dot it is in the centre of the Med. Like the first monk I encountered on Mount Athos, he draws analogies between Islanders and the shared dichotomy of fortress economy and open tolerance to and accommodation of what the seas bring to shore.
The Arhondaris admits that this is all he knows about Malta. I enquire why his accent sounds so different to anything I have heard so far on the Peninsula. Almost American. Patronisingly, I also complement him on the standard of his English He chuckles and says that he has actually been out of Mount Athos and not all monks are as insular or otherworldly, as they might come across. He states that he hasn’t travelled as much as he would still like to and that he had studied in Toronto, Canada, hence the faint echo of a  transatlantic drawl.

Wishing to elaborate further on his earlier question of whether I was been travelling in Greece by myself, I say that the first time I had travelled quite alone, was when I was 17, and had gone to visit relatives in Ottawa in Canada. I add that I had visited Toronto briefly and hope that this connection once established, might add to an imaginary tally of ticks on a checklist leaning towards staying on Mount Athos. He nods and makes a comment about travelling being the best sort of education, helping to broaden one’s horizons, but everything hinges on the next question he poses; the awaited “ What do you do in Malta?”, presenting me with my breach in the walls.

Malta University

This is my chance. I say quite truthfully that I am a student at the University of Malta, (so far so true)  and then that I am majoring in ‘History of Mediterranean Civilisation’ whilst hastily mentioning and glossing over subs(idiary subjects) in Psychology and Communication Studies. In doing so, I have bent the truth to suit my current situation but have not uttered an outright lie. Fact is I have ‘dropped’ out of university, but have not made it official. The door is still open. My fourth year at Uni has already started and by rights I should already be back home. In any case I would have to re-take my third year having flunked out of the final semester. I haven’t decided what to do, whether to stay on in Greece, do some English teaching or continue travelling possibly on to Turkey (I’d have to demote to bumhood though, very soon and sleeping in the park, as funds were rapidly running out). There was even the possibility of staying put on Mount Athos and becoming a monk..why not eh? I had indeed studied Psychology and Communication Studies at University, but in my third year had elected to major in Communications. History of Mediterranean Civilisation, or ‘HMC’ as students referred to it, was compulsory for the first two years of a Bachelor of Arts Degree and in fact I had studied harder for this subject, what with all the compulsory remembering of dates pertaining to battles and the signing of treaties -which I was no good at, than for my other mains.

Truth is I liked history, still do. I didn’t choose to study it, but was OK with it being on the enforced curriculum. Included in the syllabus were three intense but interesting credits on Greek and Roman Art, Early Medieval Art and the Art of the Renaissance. The lie was that I was not majoring in the History of any Civilisation, and had only studied it for the first two years of my degree, after which we then had to drop it and focus on one of our main subjects. However and luckily in hindsight for me, I had come down with a belly bug on the day of the Medieval art exam and being indisposed bowel wise, had not been able to attend the test sitting which due to a number of beaurocratical reasons, had been postponed to the following year. Thus having recently sat and passed the exam (one of the very few I had bothered to turn up to in my first third year semester), the contents of the course were consequently, still quite fresh in my mind. Later that day I was to thank that belly bug a thousand fold.

So the Arhondaris chuckles once more (he likes chuckling I think), “I will write down that you are a student of Medieval Art, very good, most interesting” he says, his diplomatic way of cutting me short. I am too busy congratulating myself (once I have convinced myself of my own white lie and waffled on enough, about diligently studying HMC in my attempt to pull the wool over his eyes), to really consider the twinkle in his eyes, and what it might portent. The interview is over. I am invited to attend a tour of the art treasures and relics on display in the main chapel later in the afternoon after lunch.

Lunch sounds good and I feel I’ve earned it, burning a few neurotransmitters as I have, racking my brain in that audience with the Arhondaris. After washing our hands we file into a larger, high ceilinged and plainer trapeze (refectory) than the one I dined in last night. Not all the monks are gathered here, reminding us that this is an Idiorhthmatic monastery in transition. Nevertheless, the sea of black far outnumbers the one trestle table of assorted guests and lodgers. There are no courses. Our meal has already been lain on the table and the fare is simple but most welcome. After all, this is the only grub available with no shops in miles and we are grateful and salivating, our palate sharpened by the fact that no one has had a bite to eat since last night and it is not permissible to stash food away in our rooms .  There are baskets of bread, earthenware bowls with black olives, vegetables and platters of goat’s cheese interspersed with sprigs of rosemary. All the food is vegetarian except for a few plates of small fillets of fried fish in the middle of each table. Everybody remains standing until the Abbot, who enters last, has said grace and given us his blessing. Anticipated eagerly, mealtimes take on extra significant dimensions in any institution, breaking up the hard slog of day and the tedium of routine. People are rarely late for one of life’s basic joys. At any rate, we the guests, had been first on the scene. Not understanding Greek, I took my cue from the monks when to sit down, but I couldn’t understand why everybody was staring at the food and not tucking in. None of my fellow guests had lifted a finger, not even David and I surely wasn’t going to be the first, even though I was squirming on the bench with impatient hunger.

Finally after what felt like a decade, the reason for our delay made an entrance, opening a pointed wooden door in gallery above us. The monk closed the door quietly and every eye in the Trapeza followed him as he made his was along the recessed balcony. At first I thought he was going to sing, having made up in my mind, that he was in a choir’s loft. But then as he glided to the right, I noticed he was nestling a heavy embossed and brocaded book under one elbow. Reaching a metal stand, that served as a lectern, he placed the bible, for that’s what it was, upon it and clearing his throat began to read. Sustenance for the spirit. This was the signal apparently for a hundred arms or so to reach across the tables and begin to stack their empty plates. The fish disappeared fast and first and alas I was left with none.
No one had touched their goblets though and absentmindedly I reached for a pitcher of water to pour into my tumbler. Luckily David had the good sense to place a restraining hand upon mine with a nod in the Abbot’s direction. I failed to cotton onto the relationship between the Abbot and the pitcher, but I released my grasp immediately, sensing some other code which no doubt I would soon be illuminated upon. In fact even though the Abbot hadn’t even noticed my existence, much less acknowledged an averting of impropriety, some sixth sense made him reach for his goblet which an attentive monk filled up at once. I did not have to wait long for the significance of this action. There was a sudden rush for the water pitchers. One could only drink after the Abbot had first had a swig. The meal was consumed in silence, the better to hear what the monk above was reading out aloud, although it quite literally, was all Greek to me. I later found out that the monk whose turn it was to read, was required to fast for the meal, if not for the day. Thank God he had something to concentrate on, for it would have been pretty masochistic where his eyes to wander, watching other people eat, on an empty stomach.
I began to notice a strange pattern of behaviour, which later that evening, I was to emulate as though my life depended upon it. Every time, the reading monk, paused ever so briefly, to turn the page, to breathe, to cough or to sneeze (although he didn’t sneeze during this particular meal), there appeared to be, a sudden urgency to make a dash for the last piece of bread or olive or any morsel that happened to be sitting on your plate and stuff and cram as much as you could into your mouth at one go. If the monk resumed his recital, you could feel a palpable releasing of tension, a lowering of shoulders, a collective sigh of relief, but at the next pause, and especially, increasingly towards the latter part of the meal, the same pattern could be observed. The explanation was provided at my expense, when with a loud bang of the bible being closed shut, the monks accompanied their amens, a riposte to the monks closing supplication, by removing their hands from the table and placing them in their laps. There were no forks and knives to put down for we had been eating with our fingers. There would be no more consumption. 

When the reader monk (Anagnostic) stopped reading, then, that was the cue for you to stop eating. Too bad if you, like me, had half a plate full left of perfectly edible provisions, piled up high. Tut tut for being too greedy, but more to the streetwise point, a rap on the knuckles for stupidly being too slow. I wisened up pretty quick on this one. The abbot stood up, and the entire refectory followed suit. Another prayer was said and I murmured my gratitude along with the others. We then walked out in a file, following rank, meaning we guests were last out. This gave me plenty of time to look back wistfully (this was fast becoming a habit on Mount Athos) at my unfinished repast and ponder on how many hours would have to elapse before the next opportunity of a meal,

Being one day ‘paying’ guests (though long stays were expected to roll up their sleeves) meant there were no plates to wash, so we sauntered out into the sunshine to await our guided tour of the Monastery’s treasures. The world was sweet and I distinctly remember, despite the trials recently endured, how lucky I was to be there in that special moment in time, enjoying the impressive instant: kind hospitality, homemade bread, tomatoes and cheese, sunshine on one’s back and not a care in the world for a few hours at least. How little did I know.

Continued next week ....

Baked Bean

I'm seriously beginning to think that I might just have been born with some genetic predisposition to Mr Bean/ Some Mother's do have 'em moments. Lurking, entwined in some mutant DNA strand, is a latent tendency to find myself, quite innocently, embroiled in embarrassing and awkward situations of the socially inept kind.

Two November's ago, following close on from my fortieth birthday, I decided I would have a last fling with youth. I most definitely do not look it (not by any wild stretch of the imagination), but psychologically I will be forever fifteen, unsure, confused, naive, eternally hopeful and stuck on a roundabout, facing crossroads and possibility in  perpetual moratorium.
A few years earlier whilst staying at a hostel in Granada, Spain, I had told myself  my dormitory days were numbered. Whilst I was retiring to (bunk) bed, most of my roommates,a few of them young enough to have been teenage accidental offspring, were getting ready to go out. The din was unbearable and I felt like the party pooper I didn't want to be.From now on it would be B&Bs for me. As a solo traveller, it is true that hostels do provide age appropriate opportunities for encountering like minded individuals, sharing travel anecdotes, avoiding eating out alone in a restaurant at night (terribly sad but lunch is OK) and making new friends.

However there comes a time in life when you just can't hack the common room conversations any more, the 'awesomes', the broad generalisations, the wacky backy intimations of coolness, and another "where do you come from?", trying to explain that Malta is not actually in Russia, just ain't worth the spittle.
Good conversation is hard to come by and you are just the saddo ageing -wanna be hippy- in the corner, whose sole usefullness seems to have become bundling all the drunksters into the taxi after the nightclub with the god-awful-soulless-noise that passes for music, and making sure they get back safely.   With age comes a reluctance to part with one's creature comforts; you can't tolerate cheap alcohol, you buy Scholl hiking boots, camping loses its allure (I'll just come for the day), one night's lack of sleep leaves you grumpy for days and you'd rather fork out extra for the en suite than share a toilet rim (your hygiene requirements are  prissier).

But I had decided upon Berlin. Had left it too long. Berlin to me was sleaze and decadence, bad hairdos and kinky nightlife, pop-up bars and riverside beaches. Berlin was unpolished, avant garde, it was the underground 20's in every other city. Cabaret and the Kit Kat club, swing parties, jazz and smoke.Berlin was graffiti, freedom, a wall torn down, a bombed city, post modernly reconstructed. Berlin was cheap, and smelled of beer and sweat. Berlin was Doc Martens and leather, flea markets and community squats, free thinking and ghettoed, open minded and bohemian. In Berlin, the tube was easygoing, everyone dressed down and had terrible fashion sense. Berlin was the night and fun, fun, fun.

Berlin was gonna be my final hostel stay. The last few holidays had been staid, four star and B&B. However I did not want to do Berlin alone. I wanted to be with party people, this was my bow out to youth and so it was.In fact I have to go back to Berlin and see it by day (but that is another story). Youth is infectious, spotty, adventurous, full of false baravado and it doesn't think of the repercussions. It is OK for a while.

Now on with the sauna story

The orange themed hostel in Berlin that did not sleep, (everything was orange, including the communal showers and everyone appeared to like playing musical bunk beds: as in hopping and humping) came with a  discounted entrance ticket to a chain of dubious sauna and health spas.
Having just emerged from bed, one late afternoon with a thumping hangover induced headache and deciding that a detox was on the cards, I thought I'd start off with that sauna for high tea.
Off I traipsed and finally found the establishment after much questioning as to its whereabouts, and being guided there by a pharmacist, in an inner courtyard, surprisingly quite respectably looking, down a dim, not so respectable urine sprayed (feline or human - I couldn't tell) alley way.

For some reason I had forgotten my shower flip flops back at the hostel and I didn't think to ask for any at the reception desk. When I exited the changing rooms, the reception desk was deserted, and after eons hovering round the corridors, I decided to tip toe my way to the sauna, fretting about contracting verrucas (which I did get and which were a real expensive nuisance to get rid).
The Sauna was situated next to a plunge pool, but both were separated from the bar and lounge area by a port-holed door. A notice affixed to this door read that all swimwear had to be removed before entering. One could wear a towel round around your waist, but this also had to be removed before entering the sauna. Bummer. The Germans of course are quite nonchalant about Nudity. In the GDR museum I learn that in East Germany behind the wall, mass, nudist family, summer holidays were quite the norm. Nudity in the sauna is de-riguer,  but I couldn't understand how not using your towel to park your sweaty bum on, would make it less hygienic. Anyway 'When in Rome...', plus I had gone off peak (discount catch) and there was no one about. So off came the trunks which I pegged on a hook near the door (hoping I would find them hanging there upon exiting, not wanting to trasverse the distance back and forth to the locker room, barefoot once more ).Once inside,  I reluctantly l part with my towel, try unconvincingly to assume an air of diffidence, fan my genitals decorously with one hand pointing southwards and gingerly open the doorto  the sauna with the other. It is empty and I heave a sigh of relief.  I am alone and spend the next half hour alternatively baking, and exiting the Sauna a few times to excruciatingly lower myself an inch at a time  into the freezing plunge pool. Luckily there is no one to see my dangly bits, dangle no longer and shrivel into anonymity every time I do that.

One man does put a head through the door, but either I am the wrong sex, or I smell, or I am the right sex but unappealing. He thankfully changes his mind.
By now I have got used to this nudity jaunt and given the general state of desertion I feel I can be a little daring and explore the rest of the facilities on offer. Wrapping the towel tightly around my waist I brave the nip in the outside corridor and walk upstairs to where a sign informs me, the steam room is located. It is off with the towel again and this time I do not bother to cup my jewels, even if there are more people milling about upstairs than below.
Entering the futuristic styled oval steam room, I can't see a friggen thing, I try to keep my gaze in the middle distance trying not to look anywhere too specific (that dreaded eye contact in an elevator syndrome) but I couldn't help but keep peering into the nebulous mists, anxious as I was, not to stumble or sit on or against anyone else's dangly bits.
The blue neon tinged clouds of steam, part for a second and I espy a supine body laying on a slat. I feel for an empty place, a fair and comfortable distance away from the seemingly only other spa occupant. Then the next dilemma presents itself. Once settled do I just sit there cross legged, arranging my dangly bits as decorously as possible, do I hunch over modestly, covering the obvious, do I lay face down bum up? or do I go for the jugular and splay?
My sauna stamina levels are quite low and every five minutes I need to get up and exit. This time I opt for  a cooling shower, eschewing the plunge pool. The man in the steam room, conversely has enormous staying power and doesn't even shift position.Every time I re-enter he is still lying there. But this in itself is not unusual. Some people can spend hours simmering away. I always get incredibly claustrophobic in a sauna,  keeping one eye trained on the door, nervously fearful of being shut in; my worst nightmare, almost as bad as being eaten by a shark. Whereas I hate the cold and rarely ever travel to snow bound destinations, given the choice, I'd rather freeze numbingly death, than boil to scalding suffocation.
I wonder if I should attempt conversation at all. It seems quite strange; two people in a closed environment, not exchanging any form of communication. However he is in a supine position and his body language is not exactly forthcoming or condusive to dialogue.

Just as I am contemplating this, in walk three paramedics accompanied by a policeman. I am gobsmacked. They walk over to the body, talk to it, prod it and then try to revive it. You can imagine my entire non-plussedness. Initially, I thought the whole shenanigan was a fancy dress joke, an elaborate plank played on my entirely inert neighbour  (this is Berlin after all) and then the embarrassment descends upon me, man the embarrassment. Once it begins to dawn on me that they are going to have to drag/carry the man out of there, I become acutely aware of my nakedness. previously it was splay all the way, I had been so agog with the incongrous dramatic entrance. Crossing my ankles defensively and covering myself with both fists, as though I've been recently arrested, I slink out of the sauna slipping on the floor, and walk out in the buff to face a whole line of onlookers.
It all becomes glaringly obvious that the reason nobody was in the sauna, was because an alarm had been sounded and who wants to share a steam bath with a dead man? A posse of people all with their modesty intact, towels wrapped round their waists and sagging chests are grouped around and questioning the spa managerand entire spa staff who have also gathered to watch the unfolding drama. All of a sudden all eyes are fixed on me as the steam room door opens wide and  I emerge . I take another tumble and lose all modesty as my hands scramble widely, undignifiedly clutching air. It is ghastly awful. I have to pick myself ungainly off the floor and walk towards them, because my towel is hanging on a peg behind the manager's head. The scene is played out in cringing slow motion. As I approach them, the crowd of people silently parts, allowing me to walk in between. My face is redder than any sauna flush, my shoulders are up to my my ears. Eyes on the floor I make a swipe for the towel, but it does not come off the hook. I yank and yank, trying to un lassoe it, for what feels like ever. I don't even bother to wrap it around me. I just bunch it over my crotch and make a run for it. I hear someone say that the guy in the sauna had taken a cocktail of uppers and downers and poppers and I don't wait to hear what else.

My God, how I make a dash for that changing room. I clatter, flapping down the stairs, no tiptoeing anymore. To hell with verrucas and corns. Willy left, willy up, willy down, willy to the right, I stream down the corridors with wings on my ankles. The mortification and humiliation of it. I could see myself on the evening news, a sauna murder suspect. I  tell u I fumbled and dressed and checked out as fast as I could. Well in actual fact there was no one to check me out, as they were all upstairs gossiping.
Only afterwards, catching my breath in the street, several blocks away from the scene of the 'crime', do I realise the police may have wanted to interview me and if there had been any suspicion of foul play, boy oh boy had I made myself look guilty by taking off like that. But I was damned if I was going back. Tomorrow morning I would be leaving Berlin. Today I would lie very low.