The Past Before Us

Beloved of the White Monastery

[This is an English translation of the previous chapter]

-- The days are getting shorter, it's so dark already. I've been waiting with my door open for hours. Where have you been?

-- So you were. Excuse my question, Miss Gül, but do you live alone?

-- No. My mother and father went to cook some beans for a poor relative. We just finished shelling them. No-one is home. There is salt and bread on the table. If you drink, there is some Rhodian wine as well. I set it aside for you. Won't you drink any?

The man, teeth clenched, hiding behind his long hair and beard, could not hide the blooming blush of his cheeks. O Father who art Heaven, hallowed be thy name.

-- I cannot accept your generosity, Miss Gül. I am fasting.

Miss Gül, still young, thought the man was angry and lowered her eyes, examined her yellowing kaftan. She did not know how to behave. He was not like other men in the village. She did not know him enough to decipher his facial expression; however, she did know his bass voice, which came echoing down the skirts of the mountain, from the White Monastery. And how well she knew it! Whenever the hymns and chants began, she would freeze in her place. Her insides trembled as she listened.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Father Valentinos breathed in the evening fog, glittering pearly-white. Before coming here, he had stood on the balcony of the monastery and gazed at the Mediterrannean waters to find peace, and had calmed the waterfalls crashing in his veins. One of the nuns had taught him to open his soul to these turquoise waters and simply breathe in and out, to take in the beauty and scent of the Lord. What were the storms of the heart but a whimper, compared to His divine wind? Spiritual wealth was infinite -- he realized this anew every day.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

He could not help but find it strange, to see the girl without her honey-coloured kerchief. When they had first met at the Bellapais market, she had had her hair covered with this kerchief, as was the custom in public. She was a weaver. It was very likely she had embroidered the thin lace on the edges of her scarf herself. Why hadn't she put it on this evening? This was probably the source of his discomfort. The thick hair spilling over her shoulders were waves, sea sparkles slipped down them. Her hair was very beautiful. The monk silenced these perennial thoughts as he always did. Since Gül was rather small, it mustn't be difficult to treat her like a young girl. The religion of the Turks allowed children to wander around without head scarves or kaftans. What was the harm in viewing Miss Gül in this light? She was, after all, much younger than himself...

Yet Valentinos heard it again -- no matter how many years it had been suppressed -- the troublesome whispers of that voice inside him. It is not a child in front of you, Valentinos, but a woman. He did not want to imagine the meaning of this. O Lord, forgive this sinner. He gripped tighter the little red book in his hand. He smiled respectfully and continued his fatherly conversation.