I felt at home: so much so that on impulse I had bought a monk’s habit in Kariés. I was eager to put it on, and as I went through the woods I laughed to think that the money from the sale of a Luftwaffe uniform was now letting me impersonate a young and pious novice! My bundle under my arm, I spotted the sea, very blue, very calm, a lovely sight between the green trees.
My steps rang out under a cool arch. I entered the courtyard of Iviron. On Athos I went from surprise to surprise, without being surprised by anything any more, and even taking pleasure in the expectation of new enchantments. I remembered Iviron, where I had landed on the first morning of my death, as a large, rather poor monastery where I had had great difficulty in getting some food. This time, by contrast, I was asked to please come up to a small drawing room, very religious, with old lithographs on the walls, and furnished with divans and pretty pedestal tables. They brought me coffee and cigarettes; I was promised an excellent supper. Tired after my long walk, I let myself be carried along by this new enchantment. I put my cup and my packet of cigarettes on the stone sill of a window protected by rusty bars, through which I could see the jungle. They gave me a heavy notebook bound in black cloth, in which travellers put their names, their signatures.
It was the first time I had seen this register. When I came to Iviron a few days before, I no doubt appeared so poor that they had not even asked who I was. I had not forgotten that I was in search of a soul: had it already arrived here? I did not know the name of this dead person. I flicked through the book at random, convinced that a recent signature would most likely be his. To no avail: he must still be in Ierissos. To amuse myself I went through the previous years ... suddenly I recognised my name, my signature! In 1952 a Francois Augiéras had passed through Iviron! It was now 1954: a Francois Augiéras completely unknown to me! My head spun. Quickly I flicked through the years ’50-’51. In June ’51 an Augiéras had slept at Iviron! For several years, another me had been walking on Athos!
Dreamily, I put the register on the window sill: I thought I was lost! Who then, in the calm of the evening ... had his face pressed against an iron bar, listening to the singing of a spring whose fresh water ran in a walled kitchen garden? I had to know nothing about it and remain a stranger to myself. I was dead, and had forgotten it! After a moment’s panic, I felt a deep, almost savage joy. So what did I have to complain about? The fragmentation of time gave me a feeling of lightness, of taking a holiday on the shores of most holy eternity. The loss of some identity or other mattered little to me, since in the after-life the consequences of my past made me a still younger being, open to all pleasures and coming across them almost everywhere. This land of inexpressible beauty, the tinkling of the bells, time subtly altered by the nearness of the ETERNAL, fulfilled all my desires. This land without women: its divine aspect touched the depths of my soul; its shameless aspect, which was mostly concealed, pleased me more than I could say On the Holy Mountain, where no two clocks told the same time, time was constantly destroyed, begun again, shattered. I was slowly getting used to it; it gave me a rest from life.
I felt protected, known all my life, since I no longer knew who I was. He who is no more, fed and housed for free! I was invited into a smoky little kitchen near the drawing room, and to sit on a bench seat where a young mule-driver was sitting. He quickly put his legs between mine. We were given soup and resinous wine. On that beautiful July evening I began to rejoice openly at being dead. They brought my bag, which I had lost. Where? I did not know. Somewhere on Athos. I always managed to find it again; for nothing is lost in the after-life, everything always comes back to you. The little sugar and instant coffee it still contained were welcome. I promised myself a delicious cold coffee in my room. Then I remembered I was leaving for Ierissos tomorrow: again I was going to have the pleasure of sailing. Ever since I set foot on Athos everything had gone well for me: the many pleasures were followed by even more! I went up to bed, more determined than ever not to return to the present century.
A boat left me by the beautiful meadows of the Bay of Bulls. With a little luck another boat, sailing past, would see my signals and take me on-board. If fate stayed on my side I might even reach Ierissos today, and hurry to this soul whose call I could hear.
Day rose over the smooth green water. Not an animal in sight. I walked for a while on the snow-white shingle. I stretched out on the stones. On my belt I had a metal flask. I made some coffee in a mug, which was also metal, and clinked when I put it down on the still-cold stones, soft to the touch, polished by the tide. When I had drunk the coffee I explored my surroundings, not straying too far from my bag, which I had dropped on the shore.
Alone and delighted to be so, I went into the meadows that stretched back from the beach. There was nothing but peace and divine tranquillity in these first hours of a hot clear summer day. I saw gently rounded hills, trees, parkland deserted by the herds.
A bellow shattered the silence! Above an open-air maze, two fine white horns were outlined against the line of hill-crests.
I went up to a drystone wall. A young bull with long eyelashes like a woman was standing stock-still at the far end of one of the fields. A black yearling, he was watching me calmly. Charming but still timid, already strong, with a gleaming coat, he was attractive. He was curious about my being on the wall, but it did not upset him. He was alone in his paddock, closed off by a heavy gate. There was love between the two of us. Did he guess that I understood his boredom, his desires?
Leaving the little wall where I had been leaning, I slipped slowly into his meadow. I got close enough to touch his damp pink muzzle. With one hoof he stamped the ground, which was covered in hoof-prints and scattered with dung and straw. He lowered his head, not to charge, but seemed to be waiting for a gesture, a caress. With one finger I stroked his low forehead, covered in white hair. His fine bright horns attracted me. I grabbed them with both hands. We tussled happily. I tried to push him onto the ground. He did his best to free himself from my grip by suddenly shaking his head hard enough to almost break my wrists. Panicking, dragging me to the ground, he fought fiercely. Our game was becoming a lovers’ embrace. Despite his shying I kept hanging on to his horns; his hard hoofs threatened to hit me in the stomach any moment; I was feeding off his strength, his frenzy; his powerful smell made me drunk with pleasure; his saliva ran down my arms. He jammed me into a corner of the enclosure, up against a wall whose sharp stones tore my shoulders! Covered in blood, my arms hurting, nearly passing out, I let go, reluctant to give up the beautiful white horns.
He leapt aside and planted himself in the middle of the field, tail whipping his sweating sides, more frightened than angry. He was young and so was I. I got up, covered in dust, happy, delighted, my clothes torn. He stayed some distance away from me, still on his guard, afraid I might grab him by the horns again. Leaving him in peace, I climbed onto the wall again and got my breath back.
He watched me, trembling at my slightest move, but slowly calming down. He even came closer, almost in reach of my hands. I did not frighten him any more; he sought out my gaze, my presence. That morning, the most cheerful of my life, sitting on the wall of a maze, I would have talked to a young bull in the sweet language of friendship and love, had I not seen a sail.
A boat was coming round a headland. I ran to the beach. I was sure it had spotted me. But would they put in? As the boat went behind an island, I took advantage of the moment to open my bag and put on the monk’s habit I bought in Kariés. Hurriedly I wrapped it round me; I drew it in at the waist with a good bit of rope; I put on my boots ... The prow of the boat reappeared from behind the reefs.
What fisherman of Athos would have dared not take on-board a young monk waving his arms on a deserted shore? The tiller turned instantly, they nearly ran aground on the shingle. They were going to Ierissos, the same as this “young ecclesiastic”.
Helm set for the open sea again, the sail hoisted and filled by the wind, I sat in the prow made of strong blue boards and coul
d not stop myself laughing at my transformation; I loved the game, in it I saw the secret of life: to mislead, to change clothes, to be someone else for a while in order to live forever! And besides, the religious habit suited me well: the collar of my shirt wide-open at the neck, as was the custom of the monks of the Holy Mountain, the floating robe hitched up in front over my blue cotton trousers, barefoot in my boots, I saw myself as a handsome boy, rigged out this way! Not only that— on this happy day in July I was going to a friend, not a friend of the heart but a loyal companion in adventure, as far as I could place him in my former lives, which was hardly at all. I was dead and no longer forgot it. All that reached me were the last echoes of a past which was becoming foreign to me ... final echoes from far away, like the clear green waves that boomed against the hull every now and then as they ran into our boat, then carried on, indifferent, towards the rocks ahead where they would be crushed.
Athos fell into the distance. We left the holy water, deep and cold, and entered a wide bay.
The beach at Ierissos was visible on the horizon. Ierissos; the gate to return to the present century, to the Land of Mortals. The broadly curving, feminine coast seemed very attractive and very beautiful, with its fields of yellow wheat sloping gently down to the sea. Children and horses were walking in the foam under the blue sky of Greece. The motion of the swell, which was making the boat rock, slowly lifted up this delightful landscape, which went out of sight, then appeared again above the side.
Engine stopped, sail down, we made our own headway; the stern was now slicing through the shallow water, silky and warm. A slow, voluptuous music, enough to make you want to be reincarnated in a woman’s belly, came from a small cafe built of multicoloured planks on the brilliant white sand of the beach. The song of the bouzoukis was carried on the sea breeze, mingling its soft tones with the rhythm of the swell. A half-naked child drank lemonade in the shade of a roof made of reeds. Young girls cooled their beautiful brown thighs in the calm surf. At each breaking of the waves they lifted their light, bright dresses up to their waists—solemnly, peacefully; they were Greek, happy. I desired the girls! For the love of boys was only a progression for me, the refusal of a new incarnation. The keel of the boat touched the pebbles; we dropped anchor. The land where you die, or are born, however desirable it may seem, is an illusion that no longer had any hold over me. I had known other joys, the world beyond.
I wanted to take my friend there. I saw him, asleep in the shade of a caique drawn up on the shore. I went over and woke him with a touch of the shoulder. Opening his eyes he recognised me almost immediately, despite my religious get-up, which did not seem to surprise him. According to him I had been a cheerful type for all eternity! We fell into each other’s arms. He had been wandering the beach for several days, hoping I would come. He was quite timid, and my arrival got him out of a predicament, for he did not dare sail to the Holy Mountain on his own.
Each person takes into death what matters most to him. He was loaded down with a heavy bundle, some saucepans, coils of rope, an axe, salt, spices, hooks and pepper wrapped up tightly in a sheet, for he was hoping to sleep on the beach, to fish, and be self-sufficient without asking for hospitality from the monks of Athos. We bought a few things; laden with cans of oil, sugar and bread we went back to the shore. Cheerful as I had rarely been, my mind off my solitude, well-supplied with provisions, delighted to go to sea again, I felt no regret as I watched Ierissos fade into the distance. We were going to live on the beaches, fish, and bathe. I was returning to the after-life, and not alone. Could I ask for any greater happiness?
His joy at sailing towards the white marble of Athos reminded me of the first morning of my death. The forests and the deserted shores of this divinely beautiful land, uninhabited by women, filled him with wonder, and amazed him.
Leaning on my elbows in the stern, rocked by a strong swell ... did I guess that I was living my last happy days, that I was soon going to cross the thresholds that separated me from the AWAKENING; that terrible burns were destined to be the beginning of the end for me?
Had I glimpsed the culmination of a great dream, the destruction of my being? Did my eyes hope for a dream that did not have the deceitful colours of the sky and the water? I was soon to die the second death, and did not know it. And yet the dull thud of the swell striking the hull, echoing strangely, worried me. Today the waves were surging into the sea-caves with a force I had never seen! Their cascading jets of spray, the booming of the surf, the frenzy of the mad waves ... shattered and deafened my soul. Everything in me was breaking apart, roaring with the wind. One by one the last links that tied me to life snapped cleanly, like weak moorings. The struggling of our wooden boat as it was manhandled by the sea, the merry thunder of the waves hitting the shore ... drowned out the cries, the moans of my soul which, without my knowing, was already freeing itself from me.
On the waves of a peaceful bay, everything calmed down. Sheltered from the wind, engine switched off, our caique slipped silently towards the shingle. We went ashore at Iviron. In the Land of the Spirits, through the meadows, we walked up to the monastery. It was early afternoon and a sultry heat came from the forests, noisy with the many cries of the insects. My wanderings continued, this time in the company of a brother spirit.
This friend from my likely past brought me out of my solitude; his affection touched me, and I returned it in full. It was good to hold his hand tightly in mine, to lean on his strong shoulder. And this joy was also owed to me. Yet I suspected that this final and powerful echo of my former lives was the forerunner of the great silence that heralded the Clear Primordial Light; this last, all-too-human bond, could only be soon to break. Although happy to see this old friend, did I already want him to leave? A great labour was going on in my heart: I was weary of knowing that I had lived. I was now becoming accustomed to being no more than a soul, close to the AWAKENING, disinterested in itself, more than half-destroyed, knowing it, and becoming frightened.
While I was having a nap in one of the cool little rooms of this old monastery, he set off along the rough paths that led up to Kariés. At the height of the heat, with the cicadas calling, he came back with a parchment giving him the right to live ‘eternally’ on the Holy Mountain! We danced with joy over this; I gave him some cold coffee to help him recover from his long walk in blazing sunshine. But was he going to stay with us for a long time? Wouldn’t he soon return to the world of men, like most of the souls who are quite unable to get used to the other side of life?
He liked only the beaches: was he going to get to know nothing of Athos except the water? Everyone carries their own Paradise within them. His was a sea-going paradise: it drove him away from the ancient monasteries I loved, and so we travelled along the north coast in the hope of settling down, deep in some deserted creek.
Since the clear dawn, we had been walking along through the foam, carrying our heavy load of saucepans, supplies and rope. At a beach of very fine sand, shaped like an arc, something made us stop. I knew it; I had bathed here. Overlooking it from high above was a hill covered in broom and flowers. Sweet-smelling bushes came right down to the edge of the shingle. Bees were buzzing by the water, skimming over the surf, then flying back off into the many colours of the countryside.
We quickly pitched camp round some sandstone tables—held down by their weight alone, polished smooth by the years, soft to the touch, great divine blocks left there by the sea. We put the loaves on them. He set up our sheet to protect us from the sun. Using an arrangement of long stakes and fishing line, he stretched it out above the stones. The sea breeze swelled it gently; cool shadows were cast on the sand.
He was a sturdy lad of thirty, skin tanned by the sun, and silent by nature: I tried to remember him. He came from a long way away. He went back to the time of my youth, when the gods reigned over these shores. I lit a fire and fetched some wood, while he fished on the furthest reefs. He emerged from the sea, dripping with foam, fish hanging from his waist, carrying a bas
ket full of sea urchins. He threw his catch on the sand; I washed them in the light swell. From a spring that he found further up the beach, he brought back my metal can full of fresh water.
We ate in the shade of the sheet, our eyes dazzled by the light, propped up on our elbows at our sandstone tables on the beautiful, bright sand, saying nothing, listening to the quiet song of the tide. The joy of seeing each other again made our hearts beat in our broad chests. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly in mine, tightly enough to break it.
“I love you,” I said, “with a pure, noble love.”
He did not answer, but a smile full of friendship came to his lips. He poured me some resinous wine in a silver tumbler he had given me; then he asked me about the Holy Mountain. I told him about my incessant wandering, my incredible adventures. Was I inventing them? I assured him I was not! To hear me talk you would have thought I was a quite a braggart, more Greek than the Greeks, and a liar like no other! He treated me as Ulysses with a thousand tricks, a vagrant taken in by magic spells. I continued my story, surprised him, made him laugh. At noon, as the heat was getting unbearable, we sheltered under a large tree.
When night came, beside an enormous fire we lit on the beach, I finished telling him about my many wanderings, each word, each phrase gently given rhythm by the steady sound of the surf which echoed in the shadows. I fell silent; a wave broke on unseen pebbles. Did he still see me as a friend? Or more of a magician in the firelight?
I told him about THE ADVENTURES OF THE SOUL, Daughter of the Light: her countless incarnations from age to age and from mask to mask; her return to the Land of the Spirits after each death, but only for a time; a delightful or unbearable stay, in fair reward for her actions and especially for her tendencies. The chance for some souls to never be reincarnated again, as long as they crossed the thresholds that lead to the AWAKENING: as long as they agreed to die the second death, the final ordeal leading to the Clear Primordial Light. If not, after a varying period of happiness or horror, sometimes a long dream, comes the inevitable return to the world of men.
A Journey to Mount Athos Page 14
