Helena

by Evelyn Waugh

  In time, no doubt, order and reverence would return, so Macarius thought, but as he stood beside the Empress and showed her what was being done, he merely said: “Do you really think that in all this you will be able to find a hole in the ground and a piece of wood?”

  “Oh yes, I think so,” said Helena cheerfully.

  Everyone in Jerusalem remarked on Helena’s vigor. The old lady was positively indefatigable, they all said. But in truth she was very weary. Winter set in. The convent was exposed, damp and chill. It was not thus, in Dalmatia, that she had planned her old age. She seemed to have come to an end of her questions. No one was helpful. No one was hopeful. At Christmas she had not the strength to ride out with the procession to Bethlehem. She went to communion in the convent chapel and that day allowed the nuns to make a fuss of her, spending the feast crouched over a wood fire which they lit for her in her room.

  But by Twelfth Night she rallied and on the eve set out by litter along the five rough miles to the shrine of the Nativity. There was no throng of pilgrims. Macarius and his people kept Epiphany in their own church. Only the little community of Bethlehem greeted her and led her to the room they had prepared. She rested there dozing until an hour before dawn when they called her and led her out under the stars, then down into the stable-cave, where they made a place for her on the women’s side of the small, packed congregation.

  The low vault was full of lamps and the air close and still. Silver bells announced the coming of the three vested, bearded monks, who like the kings of old now prostrated themselves before the altar. So the long liturgy began.

  Helena knew little Greek and her thoughts were not in the words nor anywhere in the immediate scene. She forgot even her quest and was dead to everything except the swaddled child long ago and those three royal sages who had come from so far to adore him.

  “This is my day,” she thought, “and these are my kind.”

  Perhaps she apprehended that her fame, like theirs, would live in one historic act of devotion; that she too had emerged from a kind of or nameless realm and would vanish like them in the sinking nursery fire-light among the picture-books and the day’s toys.

  “Like me,” she said to them, “you were late in coming. The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle. They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way. For you the primordial discipline of the heavens was relaxed and a new defiant light blazed amid the disconcerted stars.

  “How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating, where the shepherds had run barefoot! How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts!

  “You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage and the great star stood still above you. What did you do? You stopped to call on King Herod. Deadly exchange of compliments in which began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent!

  “Yet you came, and were not turned away. You too found room before the manger. Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love. In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you, too. You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass.

  “You are my especial patrons,” said Helena, “and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.

  “Dear cousins, pray for me,” said Helena, “and for my poor overloaded son. May he, too, before the end find kneeling-space in the straw. Pray for the great, lest they perish utterly. And pray for Lactantius and Marcias and the young poets of Trèves and for the souls of my wild, blind ancestors; for their sly foe Odysseus and for the great Longinus.

  “For His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.”

  Twelve

  Ellen’s Invention

  Presently with the passing weeks the builders worked under a milder sky and cyclamen unfolded in the surrounding hills. But Helena took no comfort in the return of spring; she had come to the end of all her questions.

  Lent suited her mood better. It was a season not yet standardized in its austerity. At Jerusalem, where they kept holiday on Saturday as well as on Sunday, there were eight five-day weeks of fasting. And when Macarius said “fast” he meant quite simply “starve.” Other dioceses indulged in mitigations—wine, oil, milk, little snacks of olives and cheese—which allowed the faithful to maintain a state of continuous rabbit-like nibbling. In Jerusalem if a man wished to attain the rewards of fasting he lived on water and thin gruel and nothing else. Some kept the full five days on this fare; many took Wednesdays off and dined heavily; others, weaker still, dined on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was left to each to judge his own capacity. But if he did fast, he must fast thoroughly; that was Macarius’s rule.

  Helena was exempt by her age from all obligation. Nevertheless she decided to fast. It seemed to her a matter of practical expediency. Her interrogations had come to nothing. She had exhausted all the natural means of finding what she sought. “Very well,” she said, “I’ll see what fasting will do.”

  The nuns vainly begged her to consider her health. They did so with good reason for as the weeks slowly passed she grew weak and sometimes lightheaded. When Saturdays and Sundays came she had no inclination to eat much. By the beginning of Holy Week she was barely recognizable as the formidable woman who had cross-examined the archaeologists.

  Palm Sunday was a day of heavy trial. Mass at dawn, a procession to Olivet, a whole day moving about the hillside from one holy place to another. Finally they re-enacted the entry into Jerusalem, Macarius walking on a leaf-strewn path, back to the sepulcher for vespers. At the end of that day Helena was too weary to eat the supper the convent had prepared, but crept instead shivering to bed.

  All building stopped for Holy Week. The whole Christian population gave themselves up to devotions which became daily more strenuous. On Thursday evening there was another procession to and around Olivet. Helena followed the routine resolutely on foot, the candle firm in her hand but with a mind which often grew dizzy and blank among the lections and psalmody. They ended the night in Gethsemane, where the Gospel was sung recounting the agony and the arrest of Christ. At the final words the whole multitude burst out into lamentation, part customary, part spontaneous, a great swell of wailing and groaning. The candles were all out now and day just breaking. The sad procession shuffled back through the gates of the City to begin the long obsequies on the site of Calvary.

  At the end of the Good Friday office Helena withdrew in solitude to her room. The tragedy was over. The stone had been rolled across the mouth of the tomb. The disciples had slunk away each with his woe and shame. Pilate slept sound. After all the alarms of the day the City lay silent as the dead god in his shroud. All Helena’s full heart was with the bereaved women of long ago.

  The nuns brought her some gruel which she left untasted. They whispered about her, the feverish fixed look of her eye, the trembling of all her limbs. One of them brought her a syrup of opium and this she accepted. She had slept little in the past week. Now she lay quite relaxed at last, like the body in the tomb.

  *

  All her life Helena’s sleep had been full of dreams and always, daily, even on the far-off hunting mornings of her youth, she opened her eyes on a scene of loss; her waking heart momentarily drawn tight with the pain of leave-taking; then swiftly eased. Now on the most desolate night of the year there came to her, as though she were waking to clear day rather than, as was the case, sinking into deeper sleep, a dream that she knew was of God.

  She dreamed she was up and about, alone in the lane which skirted the wall of Solomon’s Temple. The place was no longer thronged as it a
lways was by day nor cloudy with dust, but quite empty and silent and brilliant as a mountain peak. Helena knew she was young again and gaily greeted a man who approached up the lane as though he had been one of her father’s subjects and she riding out to hunt. When he answered “Good morning, miss,” the words seemed natural and proper on that timeless morning.

  He seemed middle-aged and was dressed and bearded like an orthodox Jew.

  “You have come to lament at the Temple wall?”

  “Not me, lady. You mustn’t judge me by these togs. I only put them on once in a while when I come here to see how the old place is getting along. I’ve been abroad a long time, traveling all over the place. It’s broadened my mind. They’re a narrow lot the Jews you meet round here. I ought to know. I was one of them once. Had a little shop just down that street. Not much of a place, but I might never have moved if it hadn’t been for the Romans busting the place up. Believe me, lady, I’m grateful to them.”

  Helena knew that this day of their meeting was marked on no calendar. “You must be very old,” she said.

  “I’ll say I am. You’d never guess how old.”

  She looked hard at him and saw that on this morning of renewal he had no youth. His skin was smooth as basalt, his hair barely tinged with gray; his body was stocky and robust, but for all his cheerful impudence of speech his eyes were weary and cold as a crocodile’s. “First it was old Titus who bust it up. All my business ruined. I built it up again bit by bit. Then more troubles. Everything bust up again. Well, I’d had enough that time. Twice was too often for yours truly. So I took to my travels and since then I’ve had my ups and downs but I’ve never looked back. I dress like this when I’m here because that’s my way. I always make a point of doing what’s done wherever I am. I’ve worn yellow trousers in Bordeaux and wolf-skins in Germany. You should see me in Persia at the court. Adaptability—that’s the secret of a personal business like mine.

  “I’m in incense, see. There’s no finer connection. All the leading shrines are on my books. They know I handle the right stuff. Buy it myself in Arabia, ship it myself. Besides, they all like dealing with me because I’m reverent, see. Whatever it is they worship—monkeys, snakes; I’ve seen some pretty queer goings-on in Phrygia, I can tell you—I always respect religion. It’s my bread and butter.

  “It’s a very particular trade, mine. You have to keep your ears open, especially these days when there’s always some new cult starting; some new temple going up. That’s why I’m here today. They were talking about Jerusalem in the bazaars in the Hadramaut, how the Romans were putting up a new temple here—to the Galilean of all people. That took me back a bit. Took me back three hundred years to be exact. Why, it’s all on account of the Galilean that I’m here today.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking, no. I was thick with the Sanhedrin at the time. It wouldn’t have been good for business to get mixed up with the Galilean in those days. How things change.

  “He came right past the shop the day he was executed. Stumbled just on my doorstep. He was all in. They had to get a man to help with the cross after that. Mind you I didn’t hold with crucifying him. Live and let live, I say. Still I couldn’t have him there on my doorstep, could I, so I moved him on quick. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘none of that now. This is no place for the likes of you.’ He just looked at me, not exactly a nasty look, but as if he wanted to be sure of knowing me again. Then he said: ‘Tarry till I come.’ It didn’t sound much at the time but I’ve thought about it a lot since and believe me, lady, I’ve had plenty of time to think. I wasn’t fifty at the time and from that day to this I’ve never felt a day older. Queer, isn’t it? You’d think I’d know everything about religion, seeing the business I’m in, but I don’t. There are still things I find queer.

  “I stopped counting birthdays after the hundred and fiftieth. Up till then it was rather exciting seeing everyone else dying off. Then somehow I lost interest. No one would believe me and anyway they wouldn’t be happy doing business with a man of my age. They’d think I knew too much. One loses count of everything after a time. Women first; even money in the end.”

  “Tell me more about that day.”

  “I didn’t like it,” said the business man. “To be quite frank I didn’t like it at all. It got dark. There was an earthquake—nothing much, but coming on top of everything else it made people jittery. They said they saw ghosts. It was a very queer sort of day. No business. After a time I locked up the shop and went to see what was going on, but by the time I arrived it was all over. They were taking the bodies down.”

  As they talked the Empress and the business man walked up the lane to the place where the basilica was being built. “Think of it. All this money being spent on Him after all this time. That’s what makes my business so interesting—always a surprise.”

  “What happened to the cross?” asked Helena.

  “Oh they threw those away, all three of them. They had to, you know, by law.”

  “Where did they put them? Do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want that cross.”

  “Yes, come to think of it I expect there’ll be quite a demand for anything to do with the Galilean now that he’s suddenly become so popular and respectable.”

  “Could you show me where it is?”

  “I reckon so.”

  “I am rich. Tell me your price.”

  “I wouldn’t take anything from you, lady, for a little service like that. I shall get paid all right, in time. You have to take a long view in my business. How I see it, this new religion of the Galilean may be in for quite a run. A religion starts, no one knows how. Soon you get holy men and holy places springing up everywhere, old shrines change their names, there’s apparitions and pilgrimages. There’ll be ladies wanting other things besides the cross. All one wants is to get the thing started properly. One wants a few genuine relics in thoroughly respectable hands. Then everyone else will follow. There won’t be enough genuine stuff to meet the demand. That will be my turn. I shall get paid. I wouldn’t take anything from you now, lady. Glad to see you have the cross. It won’t cost you a thing.”

  Helena listened and in her mind saw, clear as all else on that brilliant timeless morning, what was in store. She saw the sanctuaries of Christendom become a fair ground, stalls hung with beads and medals, substances yet unknown pressed into sacred emblems; heard a chatter of haggling in tongues yet unspoken. She saw the treasuries of the Church filled with forgeries and impostures. She saw Christians fighting and stealing to get possession of trash. She saw all this, considered it and said:

  “It’s a stiff price”; and then: “Show me the cross.”

  “They threw it in an old underground cistern,” said the business man. “One just outside the gate. A big place down some steps. It used to be the main water supply for this end of the City but it dried up for some reason years before.”

  “Where?”

  Without hesitation the Jew led her to the western edge of the new platform and beyond it among the heaped-up rubble.

  “It’s hard to tell exactly,” he said. “They’ve altered the place so much.”

  He took a sight through his weary, knowing eyes at the two fixed points in that scene of change—the tomb and the summit of Golgotha. He judged the distance carefully and at length dug in a heel. “Dig here,” he said. “You won’t be far out. Dig till you come on the steps.”

  Then Helena awoke and found that she was an old woman, alone and slightly drugged, in the dark. She lay waiting for the dawn with prayers of hope and thankfulness.

  When it was light she went to the sepulcher. People were already assembling for the first office of Holy Saturday. She was a familiar figure there and excited no comment.

  She followed the path she had taken in her dream, climbed the heap and stood where she had stood with the business man. Where she had seen him set his heel there was a print in the dust that looked as though it had bee
n left by a goat’s hoof. Helena gently rubbed it out and set in its place her own mark, a little cross of pebbles.

  *

  The new excavation was begun immediately after Easter. Helena came down to watch the work and herself ceremoniously filled the first basket of rubble. Her command was absolute but no one on the site welcomed this interruption of the routine. To the clerk-of-the-works there seemed no limit to the delays this whimsical old lady might impose and even the laborers were resentful. It might be thought that it was nothing to them, sweating and straining to order, eyes on the ground, what they were doing or why. But the work had reached a stage when it was intelligible; the plan of the massive walls was clear, and the men had begun to feel pride in their share of this historic undertaking. Now they were called off to shift rubble they had themselves laboriously deposited; to look for a dry reservoir. There was grumbling in the barrack-rooms and in the drawing-office. Bishop Macarius, too, was sad to see the confusion further prolonged; the return to regular worship further postponed. Nevertheless the work was done, not cheerfully but with Roman method and discipline.

  They were digging the lower, westward slope of the hill of Golgotha. Under their own new rubbish they found great masses of old masonry from the City wall that had been thrown down there. Under the masonry lay the original rock and there, just where Helena had pointed, they came on the steps and the low arch where in the time of the Maccabees women had come to fill their pitchers and caravans had paused to water before entering the City. The entrance was blocked to the roof and here, on Helena’s orders, pick and spade were put away and wooden shovels issued which would do less injury to the wood, if they struck it. The rubbish was scrutinized as it went into the baskets and any fragment of timber carefully set aside. In this way they worked their way slowly deeper until, towards the end of April, to the surprise of all except Helena they came to the reservoir. Torch-light showed them a large ruinous cellar, littered waist deep with the detritus of fallen vaulting. This seemed the chamber they sought and the whole gang became at once eager and interested. Helena had an ivory chair carried down and there she sat, attended by one nun, hour by hour in the flare and smoke and dust, watching the men at work.