A Vicar, Crucified

by Simon Parke

  ‘I didn’t get your vote, though, did I?’

  ‘The present got my vote. I was voting against the process in which we were trapped. The way we go about things is important.’

  ‘So’s my job and to me, slightly more urgent than the process, whatever that is!’

  The Abbot paused. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.

  ‘What will I do now? I’ll go to the vestry and make a CD of festive music for the Christmas Fayre. Life goes on. If I don’t get murdered, that is!’

  Fear crippled Anton’s smile.

  ‘I think that’s unlikely,’ said the Abbot.

  ‘You didn’t see the look, did you? It was like nothing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘What look?’

  ‘Look of a maniac.’

  ‘Who?’

  At that point Anton’s mobile had rung in loud and jangly tones. He got up to answer it.

  ‘Really?’ he said, surprised at what he was hearing. ‘Well, that’s good, very good! I knew it would be all right, just knew it and thank you for your support... perhaps you should have said that at the meeting!... and then it wouldn’t have... good idea... very good idea... well, I’m alone now if you want to come round to the church.’

  Peter heard no more, for Anton had left the room to continue the conversation, walking through the church and into the vestry. It was one of Peter’s memories of Anton, always on the move, particularly on the phone. It was as if he had to walk as he spoke. On this occasion, he left Peter without so much as a nod in his direction and they were the last living words he heard Anton speak, for the vicar of St Michael’s did not return to the parish room. Perhaps he forgot he was talking with the Abbot. Or perhaps it was a just a long call. Abruptly disowned, Peter sat for a while and listened to the storm, crashing against this battered place of worship, built on the site of a Norman church. He wished to be in his secret place but knew it was impossible now. And then he saw the candle.

  The parish room was a modern development within the church and linked to the main church space by a glass door. Through this, Peter saw the candle flickering by the altar, a weak light in the dark. He decided to extinguish it before leaving, aware that Anton could be careless about such things. Peter would put it out and then head home. He pushed open the glass door and entered the church. The place was dark and steeped in the smell of hymn books and flowers. He walked up the centre aisle, red carpet beneath his feet. Erratic gusts slammed against the stained glass where saints walked with haloes through the storms of life. Three steps then took him up to the altar area. He climbed them carefully, licked his fingers, squeezed the burning wick into quiet submission and sensed a presence in the side aisle. He stopped still on the steps, peering into the deep shadows beyond the pillars. His heart beat with unfamiliar fear. And then something dropped on the metal grate; he was sure he heard something drop. Or was it the wind? No, something had dropped, something metallic. He stood motionless, awaiting night vision, seconds passed, a minute maybe two. He looked for movement but there was nothing and it was late. He took himself in hand. He walked down the altar steps and back down the centre aisle. The storm was making a fool of him, denying him peace.

  He returned to the parish room for his coat, turned out the light and left the church by the main door, locking it after him. He cursed as he stepped into a large puddle forming around the blocked drain, appropriate baptism for the stormy journey home.

  ‘This didn’t happen in the desert.’

  He walked down the old high street. It was sad to see so many shops at the lower end now boarded up and vacant. He crossed over the small roundabout and made his way up the Causeway to the sea front. From here, it was five salty minutes until he reached Sandy View. He turned towards the cliffs, lost to sight in the swirling wet. To the left lay the small homes that lined the front. To the right sat the beach huts, proud on the shingle edge. The sea was ponderous and heavy, troubled by the wind and crashing white wash with random force against the pebble coast. How long would these defences hold?

  It was then that Abbot Peter saw the dim shape, a hunched figure appearing from behind the beach huts and now coming towards him. It was a familiar walk but what was she doing here, at this time and in this weather?

  ‘Good evening, Betty!’

  ‘Good evening, Abbot.’

  And she carried on walking.

  Eighteen

  ‘I am glad you made it,’ said the Sarkar. ‘Really most glad.’

  ‘It is good to be here,’ replied the young desperado, taking the floor cushion offered.

  ‘I must say, though, we did have our doubts.’

  ‘Doubts? Doubts about what?’

  ‘We began to fear you might not find us, my friend. You quite gave us the slip after the chasm.’

  ‘You knew I was coming?’

  ‘Of course we knew you were coming. We brought you here, didn’t we?’

  ‘No. I was brought here by a man called Mussa.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘You mean - Mussa?’

  The Sarkar took a sip of water and drew on his cigarette.

  ‘He works for me.’

  ‘Then he is a good actor. I never would have guessed he was on the side of light.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘He played the part of a coward, a swindler and a cheat. And played it most convincingly.’

  ‘Not everything in life is an act, my friend. If the Messiah were available for employment, I would employ him. Until then, I employ Mussa.’

  Gurdjieff was unnerved by a sense of recognition. He had met this man before.

  ***

  Three days had passed since he’d entered the gates of the Sarmoun Brotherhood. On arrival, he’d been taken to the wash house, invited to strip and then left alone to step naked and joyful into one of the large tubs of piping hot water. Gurdjieff had a passion for the scalding and groaned in delight. Clean and renewed, he found his old clothes taken and replaced by a sheepskin coat, belt and cap, familiar dervish garments. He liked his new clothes. Here was the Black Sea boy at one with the Hindu Kush! All life is precious and every day a prize!

  Full of questions and ripe for revelation, he’d been given a tour of the settlement by one of the monks. ‘How many live here?’ he asked as they walked.

  ‘There is a community of around nine hundred souls.’

  ‘And these round buildings of stone and thatch which we pass: what are they?’

  ‘They are called Oratories and house members of the community. Each, as you see, is surrounded by vines and herb gardens, for which the oratory community is responsible.’

  Gurdjieff could see why people came here. It was a good and peaceful place to live, ordered yet free. Here was movement but not wasted movement. This was his first and abiding impression of the Sarmoun community: movement but not wasted movement.

  The monk spoke simply and left gaps between observations. Sometimes, he would walk without saying a word, inviting Gurdjieff to see with his own eyes and ask his own questions.

  ‘You are a quiet guide,’ said Gurdjieff at one point.

  ‘People must be taught to see for themselves,’ said the monk. ‘It’s not good to have everything pointed out. It makes people lazy and obese with second hand knowledge.’

  Gurdjieff was taken aback. This had not been his understanding of teaching. Wasn’t the teacher meant to tell everything they knew?

  ‘But when the guide knows more than the guided?’ he probed.

  ‘Then the guide must restrain themselves.’

  They walked on further in silence until Gurdjieff returned to questioning of a more basic sort.

  ‘How long has this community existed here?’ asked George Ivanovitch.

  ‘Allowing for one break, when Genghis Khan destroyed the nearby c
ity of Balkh, the brotherhood has been in this place since records began.’

  ‘And when did records begin.’

  ‘We don’t know - there is no record of that.’

  Guide and follower laughed together. It was the guide’s only joke and one he clearly treasured.

  ‘And what do you all believe? I have heard different things.’

  ‘We believe many things,’ said the guide. ‘We contain many approaches to life. But our motto is this: work produces sweet essence. That is the fire around which we gather.’

  ‘What sort of work?’

  ‘Work is spiritual, physical and mental.’

  ‘It’s true. Everyone seems to be doing something.’

  ‘Each member is a specialist in some sphere of activity: one might be a gardener, another a mathematician, another skilled in falconry. There are many skills. Here also are those skilled in medicine. We approach now a herbalist, for instance.’

  An old man ahead was on his knees, tending a thick-leaved plant, rather ugly and small, with little by way of flower.

  ‘He grows the holy Chungari plant.’

  ‘A holy plant?’

  ‘It is called the herb of enlightenment.’

  ‘It doesn’t look much.’

  ‘Neither did the Christ. But a beautiful aroma, I think you will agree.’ As they drew close, it was like sweet honey in the air.

  ‘Literally, Chungari means ‘howness’ and is consumed by Dervishes at special times.’

  ‘Ah! The fuel of intoxication!’

  ‘It’s non-narcotic.’

  They drew close to the shrub. Gurdjieff reached out to touch but the monk’s hand forbade him.

  ‘You can neither touch nor taste,’ he said. ‘This is not the time.’

  It was to be a familiar and frustrating feature of the Sarmoun Community in these early days. Amid so much explained, so much was not. The visitor here experienced both openness and secrecy. You were made welcome but made also to wait.

  ‘You seem frustrated,’ said the guide.

  ‘Everything in this place is hidden!’ exclaimed Gurdjieff.

  ‘“Dervish” is Persian for “One who waits at the door”. You will not wait for ever.’

  ***

  ‘After we met in Bokhara, I decided to help you,’ said the host and in an instant, Gurdjieff realised with whom he spoke. This was the thin-fingered man he and Sol had met in Bokhara, in the room where they drank lemon. ‘Yes, I thought you displayed a grand spirit, determined and desperate. I saw quickly that your friend felt otherwise and I tried to separate you from him. It seems he did that himself later on. But you were different from most who enquire about the community. I felt you might not only want the truth but know also what to do with it.’

  ‘Hardly the impression you gave,’ said Gurdjieff, flattered but tetchy. ‘We almost gave up after meeting you. Had we not met Mussa we would have left Bokhara the following day. We’d never been so poorly treated as we were there.’

  ‘We do not encourage visitors yet delight to see them!’ said the Sarkar with a smile, eyes dancing beneath his cobalt-blue turban. ‘We are rather contrary in that way. But as I’m sure you understand, human motives are less than pure and people do not always seek us for the right reason.’

  ‘And what is the right reason?’

  ‘To nurture truth at the expense of self.’

  ‘Who on earth does that?’

  ‘Precisely. Most use truth to beat others and so lose it in themselves. Here, we use truth to die to ourselves and so keep it alive.’

  ‘So what truth can you tell me?’

  The Sarkar smiled. Would this be the man? Would this be the man to take the teaching to Europe? There was both genius and tyrant sitting before him.

  ‘I am aware of a symbol,’ continued Gurdjieff with impatience. He was tired of all this waiting. ‘A nine-pointed symbol. That is why I came. But this is a secretive place.’

  ‘It is an open secret.’

  ‘An open secret closed to me?’

  ‘Open secrets closed only to those who will kill them.’

  ‘And am I such a one? Am I a killer of truth?’

  It was time for decision. They had welcomed this young man into the community of the bees. Would they now allow him to taste the honey? Was it time the symbol was explained?

  ‘I think you are a friend of the truth, George Ivanovitch. An awkward friend and rather uncouth, but a friend nonetheless.’

  The young man expanded in pride. He would not be pushed away any more. He would take on this ancient and discover the secrets of the Sarmouni.

  ‘So to repeat myself, Sir - what truth can you tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘I can tell you everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything that has significance. If I do not know it, it is not significant.’

  ‘A big claim.’

  ‘A simple truth. Would you prefer I lie in self-effacement and pretend a more stupid self, like a giant in the clothing of dwarves or a lion claiming he is nothing but a fly?’

  The enquirer thought of a test. He was always testing, he’d tested people all his life, never trusting.

  ‘So you can tell me if I shall be famous?’

  ‘Intriguing perhaps but not significant.’

  ‘Can you tell me how many stars there are in the sky?’

  ‘Awe inspiring but again, not significant. Numbers do not determine glory.’

  ‘So what is significant?’

  ‘That today might be the last day of your life.’

  George Ivanovich laughed mockingly.’ But doesn’t everyone know that?! Everyone knows today could be the end of it all!’

  The man in the turban paused.

  ‘Everyone knows it, my friend. But not everyone feels it. Everyone knows it as a theory but it’s only significant if felt in the marrow of your bones. Do you feel it in yours?’

  The man in the turban stroked his beard and looked suddenly frail, his face gaunt with mortality. And then he continued:

  ‘What I offer is a different sort of knowing. I describe what it is to be human, the inner energies that create and destroy. Strangely, these things are not widely known. We know our height and our weight and the size of our shoe, things which dictate nothing in our lives; yet remain ignorant of the inner forces which dictate everything, which daily make us who and what we are.’

  ‘You claim we are puppets in the hands of these forces, our strings pulled unknowingly by their hands?’

  ‘You glimpse the truth. Truly, we do not know what we do and neither do we seem too concerned.’

  Gurdjieff was not happy with this answer. For the first time since his arrival, he believed he was wasting his time. ‘We do not know what we do,’ said the man. Yet he, Gurdjieff, knew exactly what he did. He’d met charlatans before, claiming some special knowledge, some special way to hide their own sick minds which wanted only power. Or money. Indeed, it was a good deal easier to count those who weren’t fakes than those who were. A list of the former was a short one. His thoughts, though, were interrupted.

  ‘But in particular, I describe you!’ said the Sarker, with sudden delight, his eyes dancing.

  ‘Me? But how can you claim that? You do not know me!’

  ‘On the contrary, I know you better than you know yourself.’

  ‘Then you know my birthday?’

  Testing again, seeking truth. He hadn’t come all this way for nonsense which appealed for a moment and disappointed for a lifetime.

  ‘I know what gives you birth.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘We will not be personal so early. We’ll not grab hastily at the truth plant, for fear of crushing it. Those who are not ready for the
truth, they kill it in their rough and stupid handling.’

  The enquirer pondered these words in the heat of late afternoon.

  ‘How do you know these things?’

  ‘Let me show you something.’

  Between host and visitor was a small table covered by a clean white cloth. The host now pulled the cloth from the table. There before the young man was a strange mosaic in polished wood, a mysterious symbol, a circle whose circumference displayed nine points.

  ‘It looks like the devil’s tool,’ said the visitor.

  ‘The devil may borrow it but I prefer to think it belongs to God. Indeed, some call it the nine faces of God.’

  ‘And what do you call it?’

  The host covered the symbol with the cloth, hiding it once again from public gaze.

  ‘Tradition names it The Enneagram,’ he said.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I follow tradition.’

  A white dove landed in the cave’s entrance. Peaceful and pure, it paused a while, before flying high into the sky of the Hindu Kush.

  Nineteen

  The knock on the door found Abbot Peter gargling mouthwash. After twenty five years in the desert, where camel breath was not confined to the camels, dental care and fresh breath had been one of life’s late discoveries and eagerly embraced.

  He opened the door to a pretty young girl with black hair and olive skin.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, at once beguiled and irritated she’d come at a bad time. He might have enjoyed talking with her.

  ‘Is this Sandy View?’ she asked.

  ‘It is, my friend, but if you’ve come for the charity bags, I’m going to need another day. I forgot all about them and I’m now waiting for someone, due any minute. Otherwise I’d ask you in.’

  ‘Then let me confess something too.’

  It had been a while since the Abbot heard a confession and this wasn’t the time.

  ‘You’re very welcome to return -.’

  ‘I’m the one for whom you wait,’ said the girl.

  An edifice of preconception collapsed within Abbot Peter.

  ‘Oh I see.’