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.
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.
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| Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta |
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.
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.
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| Malta University |
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,
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.
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 ....
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