A Journey to Mount Athos

by FranCois Augieras

  A straw hat, a switch in his hand, a linen jacket thrown gracefully over his slim shoulder, he smiled at me a little awkwardly at the memory of our caresses and the thought that his arrival, so early in the morning, showed that he wanted more. He climbed some steps in the bank and, without a word, sat down discreetly on the rocky ledge where I had set up camp. He brought me his presence: from me he expected the affection and the boldness that he was hoping for. I joined in his game. I pretended not to notice he had arrived, sifting through my ashes, taking out a few coals that could be used again. My fingers soon met a soft brown hand, permitted to stray so close to my stones that I could not help but brush it in passing, a delightful, friendly hand, open like a flower, which shuddered with pleasure at my first caress, then throbbed when I gripped it tightly.

  We stayed like that, holding hands, for a long time without saying anything. I felt he was still timid; I questioned him, if only to distract him from his shyness, and to give me an excuse to keep his hand in mine without him withdrawing it out of modesty.

  I asked him his name, suddenly remembering that all notions of identity are just an illusion. So who was it who was standing beside me? Was I even sure that the child of today was the same as yesterday? He replied that he was called Joshua. He was dead and knew it, without quite believing it. I looked at his lifeline. It was very short, that of a boy who had died very young. Our fingers entwined again, more closely, more lovingly. Was he the son of a mule-driver, or a sailor? He had an eagerness for pleasure about him, very much the mule-driver, mixed with a grace in his ever-so-slow, precise movements, something that is only learnt at sea, to the rhythm of the swell. It appeared that he had not known his parents, only an uncle, a fisherman who sometimes took him out in his boat. After several years in an orphanage he had found himself back with the monks of Athos. His slight memory did not go beyond the recollection of mown grass and working in the garden. He loved listening to the birds singing, throwing stones in the stream, bathing in the sea. He did not complain about his master, who was strict with him but rarely beat him. He turned his beautiful face towards me, blushing delightfully.

  “I was waiting for you,” he said.

  The truth was, this Helladic child, fisherman’s son or not, belonged only to the world of the sacred. I had seen him already, on icons, miniatures and frescoes, in David, in the child Abraham guarding his father’s flocks. Joshua belonged only to the world of monks and painters: another world, freer, happier than that of men who are merely men locked in the infernal cycle of birth and procreation. Joshua seemed very old. These kind features, this strong, supple body, with rather thick ankles, this quiet nature, not the least narrow-minded, but simple, dated back to Byzantium, and came from the islands and the Eastern Mediterranean. With the soul of a servant, yet devoid of servility, affectionate and discreet, wanting caresses, little interested in women, he seemed to have always lived among hermits and icon-painters, as a disciple, almost a slave, devoted through love. Had I known Joshua in those distant times when people knew that it is the adolescent boy who is beautiful, divine, worthy of love, more deserving than women of inspiring desire and attachment—those days when adolescent boys knew it too; and when mortals could still remember young angels sometimes visiting the wisest humans? I could clearly see Joshua in the little studios of the Byzantine painters, built onto the sides of monasteries, crushing up the paints, cooking the supper: Joshua through the ages, and myself with him. The depth of my love for this child had no other reason than my incredible memory.

  He noticed the plate of tomatoes which I had not touched.

  “Not eating?” he said in a charming voice.

  “I am hungry for you!” I replied.

  He got up slowly, calmly, and, since I was hungry for him he suggested I follow him upstream. Wisely, he did not want to risk being caught by his master in a cave with me; no doubt he also wanted to take a walk higher up in the jungle. This caution and a taste for wandering were two traits of my own character. Discovering them in Joshua made me love him even more, and want to embrace him even quicker. We soon left the river, whose strong current was getting dangerous, and climbed beautiful meadows that sloped gently under the blue summer sky, wild meadows with black pines towering over them. We were high up; the air was bright, light, crystal clear, and smelt of resin. Sparrow-hawks hovered overhead. More slopes and a track brought us back to the cold water. Upstream of my cave, old windmills and abandoned barns rotted from one season to the next.

  Under an overhang of cliff was something almost like a village, with its courtyards, stables, roofs of grey, mossy stone pierced by odd little triangular skylights. There were enormous Byzantine stables of incredible beauty, made of pink brick with narrow windows. On the upper floors, hoists had once been used to haul up forage and wheat; chains and rusted pulleys still hung there. In the cold shade of the rock, nettles and brambles were growing everywhere; the sun never entered these courtyards where our love for each other was growing stronger by the minute. Dragged from their slumber by the sound of our footsteps on the damp green flagstones, the souls of mule-drivers and sturdy blacksmiths urged us on to pleasure, and lived again in us. Simple souls, deprived of pleasure for centuries. Hence our impatience to find a safe hiding place. It was as if we were expected, and lured in. Were they souls? More like ancient desires which still impregnated the walls. A long shaky ladder that was leaning against the rock led to an old loft made of daub and planks. Joshua climbed up the weak dangerous rungs and I followed. On that clear, divine morning as we slowly got higher above the stone roofs and the dancing reflections of the river and the roar of the water, sometimes feeling giddy on the unsafe ladder, we got to a loft in semi-darkness, and filled with hay right up to its many beams, between which came a few shafts of light. It was wonderfully constructed, like a basketwork of dead trees and struts, interwoven, pegged together, giving the feeling that this was nothing less than a storeroom for dreams, a vast memory, a mysterious undergrowth into which we crawled.

  Here we saw little rooms for grooms, with flimsy partitions made of dried earth, poor rooms also full of hay, their tiny windows giving glimpses of blue sky. Dirty jackets and cloves of garlic still hung on nails. A strong smell of forage and dung went to your head. Bees buzzed. Joshua lay down in the dry grass, and I propped myself up on my elbows beside him.

  Was it his joy to be alone with me in this haunted loft?

  He seemed more handsome every minute, more desirable. His face was slightly flushed with tiredness; his half-open shirt revealed a drop of sweat on his young chest. He watched me in silence. Who was I in his eyes? Another him, older, freer, more educated, while I saw in him the adolescent part of my eternal soul. Had I been Joshua in Byzantium, in the East, on the islands? Was it from him that I had got my mule-driver’s tastes and some of my country manners? Everything drew me to this fifteen-year-old boy, his lovely body, his nature. Our hands met. There was a discreet modesty about him, a simple nobility. For a long time his fingers lay still in mine. However much I caressed his hand more deeply and more deliciously, it ignored my appeal. Time passed. Joshua stood up to my gaze and continued to watch me. I was overcome with sadness. At last he remembered that he had known me for all eternity ... very slowly his hand closed round mine in a warm, sweet embrace, which plunged me into perfect happiness! He closed his eyes: among all the possible caresses, he seemed to be waiting for the very ones I wanted to give him. This similarity in our natures filled me with desire as much as it reassured me. With someone so close, so brotherly, so like myself, a lack of fear filled me with great affection for him, which became attraction.

  “I love you,” he said softly.

  I bent over his wonderfully beautiful face. With that exquisite gravity that only boys have, he gave me his lips and his soul to kiss, his soul, as fresh as the river’s roar. In a big bed of hay, we kept our lips pressed together for a long time. Our kisses were sweet; he put all his heart into them, as did I. An old spell came from him
; Joshua smelt of the sheepfold, the stable. With one hand he unbuttoned his trousers, made of coarse blue cloth; he bared his hips, a little feminine, round and white. Our pleasures over, we stayed in each other’s arms, deeply moved, covered in sweat, our clothes dishevelled. I pressed my forehead against his child’s cheek, I breathed in the breath from his lips. Drunk with pleasure, he fell asleep in the hay. A breeze, slipping in through the stone roof, brought us its coolness. I opened my eyes for a moment, long enough to glimpse the blue sky between the gap in two stones, a morning blue, the colour of our love. Reflections from the stream came through the skylights and danced on the beams. I closed my eyes again, in a hurry to return to our joy, so profound that it dazed me.

  When I came to he was already getting up, doing up his clothes. I did likewise. We could have stayed longer, but we were in a hurry to leave each other. We climbed down from the loft and went back to the cave.

  A full coffee pot had been put on a stone. So, his master had come to our camp while we were in the hayloft.

  Joshua left in a hurry, rather nervous about the reception that awaited him at home. He held out his hand, as if to say: I haven’t finished my day’s work yet. Because of you, I’m going to get the rod!

  The noonday heat forced me to find some shade. I sat on the chair, whose unexpected presence in my little cave was due to Joshua’s kindness. I was falling asleep to the deep note of the cicadas when I thought I heard cries ... I did not worry, knowing he was strong enough to take a good thrashing, and of a nature to enjoy it.

  The sky was grey, heavy. Over the jungle, a summer storm rumbled in the distance. Late in the afternoon, still drowsy from my snooze, I was very glad to drink his master’s delicious cold coffee. I was still sleepy, outside of myself, not quite remembering what I was doing in these woods. Making the most of this state of absence, my phenomenal memory dived into the past like a swimmer who lets himself sink. I was certain of it: I had lived in these caves around 1750. It was not such an ancient era. I often thought I had lived on Athos when the Byzantine galleys put in at its ports; it was true that some of my memories dated from the eighteenth century—almost yesterday.

  I returned to the present. The storm was approaching. I only had time to bring in the dry wood and my box of incense before the first showers were followed by pattering rain, which flooded the ashes and scattered my campsite. The forest disappeared under a downpour. For a whole hour I stayed in my refuge, frightened, deafened by the explosions of the lightning and the muffled roar of thunder which was repeated by the echoes of the caves. Trees collapsed. Long electric streaks dropped from the black sky with a sound like fabric being slowly torn. The storm went away, came back, and crashed down on the woods and the rocks, lighting up the jungle with its blinding flashes. A violent, heavy rain whipped the muddy river, red with clay torn from its banks; tossed up into short waves, it swept away branches and rushed downstream. Torrents of rain, cascading from the top of the cliffs, bounced off the rocks, then poured into the raging flood; left on a stone, my wooden plate was carried off and thrown into the stream, where it drifted off, bobbed up and down on the swirling water, and sank. The rain stopped, the storm went quiet. The clouds tore themselves apart, revealing the blue sky. A great silence fell over the newly-washed jungle, ravaged and very green under a new sky.

  I still had some dry wood. I lit a fire in the entrance to the cave. Once I had glowing embers I threw on some incense. A bird sang in the trees. Large drops of water were still falling from the cliff and splashed in front of me on the rocky ledge where nothing remained of my poor encampment. I closed my eyes: the perfume of the incense mingled with the smell of the damp earth, with the scent of the cedars and the bay trees with their black trunks. I withdrew into myself once more, full of gratitude and love for the kindly, peaceful forces that protected me in the holy caves.

  During the first days of death, the absence of God comes as a surprise. Was I dreaming before actually dying? Did I want to pass through the final thresholds that separated me from the Clear Primordial Light? The Spirits replied that I was indeed dreaming; I was in Devakhan, the land of happy souls who do not yet see God. A vast dream, born of my desires, my tendencies and from the undercurrent of my past, was holding me in its spell! I could stay for a long time in this delightful state, or move on towards the Light by waking from my own death.

  But who was I? My question made the good wise Spirits smile. I got an answer: that THAT WHICH survives is NAMELESS, for it is merely the temporary consciousness of sensations, experiences and ideas that come from past lives, as much as from the probable direction of future lives. If I wanted proof of this, my wanderings in the beyond quite obviously belonged to me, and made me very happy without me even knowing who I was! For was it not a fact that, not without some surprise, I was managing very well without knowing who was sitting at the entrance to a cool cave, watching night fall. The fact that my virtues and my faults were intact, still alive on this side of life, was more important to me than a name: if the first passer-by had my exact character, I would have gladly exclaimed that he was me for a while.

  We returned gently to my vague desire to cross the final thresholds. It was my right to remain in Devakhan, to set myself up in these caves, to see the child every day. My past was known; I was an old dreamer, so much so that I ran the risk of never awakening. Dead, my faculties for dreaming were increased tenfold; I was going to dream for a thousand years and then be reincarnated. The thought of returning one day to the world of men frightened me so much that I begged the Spirits to help me pass through all the thresholds they wished. I could expect no help: IT WAS UP TO ME TO AWAKEN MYSELF! However, they took note of my decision to emerge from a great dream. I must give up the enormous share of joy that was still owing to me, and die the second death. Certain Spirits, who had loved me for a long time, promised me their discreet assistance; no more could be done for me. At which point I stretched out on my blankets and, utterly exhausted, fell asleep almost immediately.

  At dawn I took a walk along the rocks. Having set off in search of a master, I found myself alone again. My master was myself! I wished to awaken but was incapable of doing it; I wanted to see the sea again, the beaches. The innkeeper’s prediction came back to me: we will see you again soon in Kariés. I continued to dream, only this time I knew I was doing it. Solitude weighed heavily on me. I was beginning to tire of myself and of the consequences of my past actions, as one tires of many echoes that are only entertaining for a moment.

  In the high jungle I thought I heard my name: a brother soul was asking me for help. Scarcely dead, it was wandering. Ancient bonds, a debt of gratitude, united me to this soul. It dared not set sail for the Holy Mountain; still very young, timid, knowing nothing of the Land of the Spirits, it was not like me, accustomed for centuries to being born and dying. I decided to answer this call immediately: I loved this soul! And I wanted to bathe in the sea.

  So I got ready to leave, in a hurry to go to this dead soul who I sensed was somewhere near Ierissos, wandering on the shore and not daring to take a boat for Athos. I tidied up my extraordinary camp; I left my chair, my blankets, my box of incense and my cooking pot in the little cave. I thanked the Spirits for their kindness. They gave me to understand that I was nothing but an incorrigible vagrant. I promised to come back. Was I wrong to go to this soul? After a long silence ... born out of vast, deep time, constantly in danger of breaking apart, disjointed, peculiar to this region of the beyond ... or because my consciousness was in the process of being destroyed ... I got the reply that I must indeed discharge myself from this final debt. They would await my return: sooner or later in this wild gorge, I would move on to the AWAKENING.

  Reassured by this, and delighted to be hurrying to the sea, I set off cheerfully along the river-bed. It promised to be a scorching hot summer day. Even at this early hour of the morning, I had to look for cool shadows that the overhang of the cliff threw here and there on the water. I met Joshua washing a saucepan
in a tranquil pool.

  Quietly we said a few words to each other: I was sorry he had been beaten because of me. Poor Joshua! To my amazement he said that no one had beaten anyone in these woods yesterday ... His master had simply asked him to spend less time with me. But I was sure I had heard howling! Where did it come from? What echoes of a hearty thrashing, lost for centuries, had reached my cave yesterday? Whatever the case, it was best for us to separate for a while, for caution’s sake. Still, he was upset that I was going. He made me promise to come back quickly. Everyone here would certainly be looking forward to my return—except his old master, who I glimpsed saying his rosary on his flowery balcony, and who was relieved to see me leave.

  In a hurry to get to Kariés I went quickly, still walking in the river, which was more passable than the Jungle of Snakes. Then I entered the forest of millennial cedars. I found the mule-drivers’ tracks again, the narrow paths beneath the branches leading to mysterious forest rides closed off by long beams, intertwined with the skill and ancient wisdom so characteristic of the monks of Athos. I had long since left the Sacred Forest when I saw the roofs of Koutloumousiou and the gardens of Kariés.

  I climbed the hundred steps that led up to the first alley-way. Doors were shut and everyone was asleep in the oppressive heat. I avoided my inn and headed for another one, built of blue wooden planks in the shade of an arbour. I was starving, and had pockets full of money. I ordered a lavish meal. I stuffed myself with meat, plates full of vegetables, delicious kebabs and wine, then fell asleep leaning on the table. Around four in the afternoon I was woken by the murmur of vespers in a nearby church. It was time to go. Dazed by the heat, I went across Kariés and took the tracks that led down to the beaches, dancing with joy at the thought of seeing the foaming waves again, the battlemented towers and the icon-filled monasteries of this land without women.