The church was in front of the outcrop, tiny and colourful against the doleful grey of the rock face. Its walls were a startling white with blue edging, the roof a wash of the same blue. By squinting, Charlotte could just make out a door in the front of the building and a cross, set at the front of the roof. At night, the church was lit by a pale yellow light that flickered in time with the wind; Charlotte assumed that oil lamps hung around its exterior. The light made its walls shimmer and stand out starkly against the grey stone mass behind it. The mass itself loomed even more at night, rearing and blocking out the stars in the Greek darkness. It gave the impression of being man-made; the crags and fissures became the battlements of a castle, abandoned and decaying but resisting a final collapse with bleak force. It, too, appeared lit at its base by the same yellowing illumination. Charlotte never saw anyone light the lamps.
In fact, as hard and as often as she looked (and she spent long periods of time simply staring at the island, to Roger’s irritation), she only ever saw one person at the church, and then only for a fleeting moment. A shadow framed in the doorway, seen in the corner of her eye as she turned away, that was gone by the time she turned back. It had to be a person, she told herself. Someone lights the lamps, and the church is well cared-for. Its sides (the two that she could see from her hotel balcony, at least) were the white of freshly painted stone or brick, and the blue roof and trim were neat and well-defined. The low wall that surrounded the church corralled ground that was clear of plants or noticeable litter. It was curiously entrancing, this little blue and white building with its domed roof and dark doorway, and Charlotte studied it for hours.
It was Roger that put the idea in her head. “Why don’t you swim out there?” he asked on about the third day of their holiday. “If you see it up close, you might stop staring at it all the time.”
Charlotte could hear the irritation in his voice, but also the joking tone. She knew he was simply trying to draw her attention back to him and their break together, but the idea took hold in her mind and would not let go. The next day, she said to him, “It’s not that far, is it? And the sea’s fairly calm around here.”
“You ’re serious?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, and couldn’t help adding, “it was your idea, after all.”
Charlotte planned the Great Swim (as Roger had taken to sarcastically calling it) for the second week of their break. It gave her time to get used to swimming in the sea, to feel the way it pulled and pushed at her. It also gave her the opportunity to ask around about the little church, but no one seemed to know anything about it. The holiday company representative merely shrugged, and the locals looked at her blankly when she asked. One said, “It is just an old church,” and looked at Charlotte as though she were mad, but it wasn’t. It was not old, not to look at anyway. This apparent disinterest in the church, which made Roger more dismissive of her plan, only strengthened her resolve and by the morning of the swim, she was determined to reach it, to feel its stonework for herself.
The path from the beach to the church was steeper that it had looked from the mainland and Charlotte had to scramble and grasp at plants and roots to support her on her ascent. The climb was more tiring than the swim and she reached the top grateful that she had not needed to go further. Grit had worked its way into her sandals and her feet felt hot and scratched by the time she reached her destination and her hands were grimy and sore. When she placed her hands on the top of the low wall and felt the heat of the sun on the rock and saw the church, however, all her aches were forgotten.
Close to, the building was even prettier than she expected. She wanted to walk straight to it, to marvel at its simple beauty, but before she could she had to deal with Roger. Standing by the wall, she turned back towards the beach. Across the strip of blue sea (I swam that, she thought proudly), the wedge of golden sand gleamed in the late morning sun. She located Roger’s tiny, frail form by finding the hut that sold fresh fruit and cold drinks and looking just in front of it, the way they had arranged. There, besides a family group, sat Roger. She raised one arm in greeting and saw him do the same in return. At least now he would not worry and might even start to relax a little. Ah, Roger, she thought, What are we going to do with you? Back home, his constant attentiveness was flattering. Here, its focus unbroken by time apart for work and without the diluting presence of other friends, it had become claustrophobic. She could not move, it seemed, without him asking if she was all right or if she wanted anything. The Great Swim had appealed, in part at least, because it gave her time away from him. He was neither a strong enough swimmer nor adventurous enough to want to do it with her, and although she felt a little guilty at taking advantage of his weakness, she revelled in the freedom that it gave her. She could not see their relationship continuing after they returned home and although this made her sad, it was a distant sadness rather than a raw grief.
Roger hopefully placated, Charlotte turned again to the church. The path up from the beach had brought her out directly facing the door, which hunched inside a shadowed patch surrounded by a neat blue border. There was a simple wooden step up to the door. Around it, the wall was plain, white-painted stonework. Instead of approaching, however (worried that she might find the door locked and that her little adventure would end too soon and in disappointment), Charlotte went around to the far side of the building.
As she came around the church’s flank, Charlotte saw that one of her assumptions about the place had been wrong; she had expected that it was built on a little plateau (possibly man-made?) and entirely separate from the rocky outcrop that glowered behind it. It was not: the rear of the church was built up against the base of the natural cliff. Going closer, she saw that the mortar that joined the church’s wall to the cliff was spread thickly so that no gaps remained. Under the skin of the paint, different-sized stones had been used to ensure that the wall fitted as snugly as possible; she could see the irregular lattice of them.
The wall itself was plain except for a single dark window of quartered glass set just below the roof. The window was low enough for Charlotte to be able to see through if she went close, as the building was only single-storey. Along from the window, a metal and glass lamp hung from a bracket, and she gave a little private cheer. Her assumption about the night-time lights had, at least, been correct. She resisted the temptation to look through the window for the same reason that she had not tried the door; she wanted to save the inside of the building for as long as possible. Instead, she turned away from the church to look at the land around it.
It was beautiful. What appeared to be scrub from half a mile’s distance was actually a thickly-knotted tangle of plants and small trees. The air was heavy with the smell of jasmine and curcuma and other unidentifiable but equally rich scents. Butterflies chased each other around the branches and lazy bees drifted somnambulantly from flower to flower. Their buzzing came to Charlotte in a sleepy wave, rising and falling in pitch like the roll of the sea. Under it was the sound of crickets and grasshoppers, an insistent whirring that was at the same time both frantic and curiously relaxing.
The press of plants and insects, and the birds that darted and hovered in irregular patterns above it all, was held back by the stone wall surrounding the church. In places, the wall bulged and roots pushed their way between the rough stones. The only break in the stonework was a rusted iron gate. Past the gate, there was a gap in the flora and an earthen track that led away along the base of the cliff. Here, the dark green leaves and branches and the blooming flowers had been cut and pushed back so that they formed an archway over the gate and made living, breathing walls for the path.
Charlotte stood, breathing in the scented air and luxuriating in the quiet. If Roger were there, she thought, he’d be taking photographs, pointing out interesting creatures or sounds, asking if I was okay, if I wanted anything. Being there allowed her to just be, unfettered by expectation or implication or demand. It was the most relaxed she had felt for her entire
holiday.
Finally, Charlotte walked back around to the front of the church. She intended to go and try the door, but instead she carried on walking, going to the right side of the building. It was, as she expected, the same as the other side, only in reverse. The window was dark and the lamp’s brass fittings were shiny with age. There was another gate in the surrounding wall, also rusted (although, looking closely, she saw that the hinges were well-oiled and clean) and another path along the base of the cliff. She wondered if it was simply the end of the path that started around the other side and which travelled all the way around the base of the great ragged cube, and decided that it probably was. She smiled at the simplicity of it and its unrefined, functional beauty.
Through the window, Charlotte thought she could see a light inside the building. She went close, brushing away a thin layer of sand and dust from the glass and peering through into the interior of the church. What she saw disappointed her.
Other Greek Orthodox chapels that Charlotte had visited, both large and small, had been extensively decorated, with pictures of saints lining the lower part of the walls, scenes from the life of Jesus above them (“As a teaching aid,” Roger had told her pompously in a church they had visited earlier in the week. “Remember, the peasants couldn’t read and so the pictures could be used by the priests as illustrations to what they were saying.” She had remained silent after he spoke, not trusting herself to say anything pleasant to him, so irritated was she at his thoughtless condescension). Icons, frequently of the Holy Mother and Child, lined the walls of these other churches, their silver and gold plate (“To protect the picture beneath” – more from Roger) shining in the light from the devotional candles that burned in trays of sand. The little blue and white church, however, had none of this. The walls were bare of pictures, painted or framed. There were no candles or chairs or tapestries here. Indeed, the only decoration seemed to be mirrors in ornate frames. There was one above the door, one behind the altar and one opposite her to the side of the window. The altar, which she expected to be bedecked with, at the very least, a delicately stitched altar cloth, was a simple table partly covered in what looked like a plain white strip of material. Two candles in simple silver candlesticks burned, one at each end. Behind the altar was an open doorway. Seeing the open doorway made Charlotte nod to herself; whilst it was, in other respects, odd, the church was at least conforming to some of what she knew about the Greek Orthodox Church, where Chapels had a narthex, a central area where worshipers gathered and a private area for the priests behind the altar. Presumably, this was what lay beyond the doorway.
Charlotte stepped back from the window, still confused. The inside of the church was so plain that it might belong to some dour Calvinist chapel and she wanted to know why this was so different from the exuberant stylings she had seen in other Greek churches. She went back around to the door, confident that she could enter: that candles were burning made her sure that there must be a priest there, and that the church should be unlocked. Before she entered, however, she went once more to the top of the path up from the beach. She was experiencing a little guilt about her feelings towards Roger and wanted to wave to him, show him some affection. It would make him feel good, and might stop him worrying. When she looked, however, she could not find him. There was the fruit and drink stall, there was the family, but Roger was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he had gone to get some shade, she thought. He was paranoid about becoming sunburnt or dehydrated, another little thing about him that irritated her. Maybe he’d got angry waiting for her and taken himself off for an early beer; in a funny way, she hoped that this was the case. It would be a spark of adventurousness, a small reminder of the Roger she first met and liked, who’d made her laugh and surprised her and paid attention to her.
Swallowing a surprisingly large hitch of disappointment, Charlotte turned back to the church. As the sun rose higher, the church’s shadows were creeping back towards it like whipped dogs, and its white walls gleamed. The domed blue roof was bright in the sun and the reflections of the light off the white walls were so sharp that she had to narrow her eyes as she approached the door. Whilst she expected it to be open, there was still a part of her that wondered if it might resist her push, but she never had the chance to find out. Even as she reached for the handle, the door swung open to reveal an old man who looked at her silently.
The man was dressed in a simple black robe, tied at the waist with belt of rope. His beard was a pepper of white and grey and black and a white cloth was draped over the crown of his head. Under the cloth, Charlotte saw long hair that fell in ringlets past his shoulders. He wore sandals and his toenails were long and curled.
“Welcome to the Island of the Church of the Order of St John of Patmos. My name is Babbas,” the man said, and bowed. He straightened up slowly and walked by Charlotte without another word. As he went, she caught an unpleasant whiff of sour body odour and another, sweeter smell that was, if anything, even less pleasant.
Babbas was fully eight inches shorter than she was and as he walked by, she could see the top of his head with its cloth covering. What she taken for white, she saw, was actually a dirty yellow. It was stained with countless greasy rings, all overlapping like cup stains on an unvarnished table. With a little jolt of disgust, Charlotte realized that the rings were marks from his hair, from where it pressed against the linen. She took an involuntary step back from him, shocked and surprised in equal measure. Why doesn’t he wash? she thought, and took another step away. He stopped and turned to her.
“This is a small church, with few facilities,” he said, as though reading her thoughts. “Come, I will show you around and explain what needs to be done.” His English was excellent, but she could still detect an accent there. Greek, almost definitely. Babbas spoke slowly, as though thinking about each word before he uttered it, and she wondered if this was because he was speaking a language that was not his own. His eyes were a faded blue, circled by wrinkles and overhung by heavy, grey eyebrows. He looked at her intently and then span around again and walked on. His walk was not an old man’s shuffle, precisely, but Charlotte saw that he did not pick his feet far up off the ground and his steps were not long.
“Each day, before sunset,” Babbas said, walking around to the left of the church, “the lamps must be lit. There are six. One here, one on the other side of the church and four at points around the island. The path will take you there; it goes all the way around this rock and comes out on the other side of the church.” Silently, Charlotte gave herself another cheer. One point for me, she thought, I already worked that out!
Babbas was looking speculatively along the path and Charlotte stopped next to him. She was pleased to find that the scents from the plants and flowers covered the old man’s own odour.
“It looks beautiful, does it not?” asked Babbas, but did not wait for a response. “It is, now. But it can be a long walk around the island, even in good weather. In winter, it is treacherous. The path becomes slippery when it is wet, and the wind can be harsh, but the work is vital. All four sides of this rock must be lit with light from a flame throughout every night. Each morning, the lamps must be extinguished and filled in preparation for being lit again that forthcoming night. This means that the morning walk is often the harder, as you must carry the oil with you in a can.” He sighed.
Standing next to the old man gave Charlotte the opportunity to study him more closely. His face was deeply lined and his skin was the deep brown of someone who spent a great deal of time outdoors. Except for his dress, which seemed too simple, he acted as though he were in charge here. He must be the priest, she thought. Why else would he be here? Perhaps this parish isn’t well off enough to afford to buy nice robes or icons for the church. I mean, it can’t have many regular parishioners, can it? Even as she thought this, her eyes were taking in more details about him. His beard hung down to his chest and his hands were ridged with prominent veins. There was something else about him, though, something harder to i
dentify. It took her a moment to recognize it, but when she did, Charlotte was a little surprised: he seemed sad.
The two of them stood in silence, looking down the path along the base of cliff for so long that it began to make Charlotte uncomfortable. She wanted to ask the man something, but did not know what. Besides, he did not give the impression of wanting to talk. True, he had started tell her about the church, but not in an especially welcoming way. It reminded her of the lectures she had attended at university, given by tutors who saw teaching as a chore.
“Come,” said the priest suddenly, making Charlotte jump, “there is much to show you.”
Babbas walked back towards the church, not looking at Charlotte as he went. She followed, halfway between amused and irritated by the man’s brusque manner. As he walked into the church, however, she stopped.
“Wait a minute, please,” Charlotte said, “I can’t come in dressed like this, can I?” She gestured down at her bikini, her naked legs and belly and shoulders now prickling in the sun. She wished she had brought sunscreen and a sarong with her; she could have tied them in a waterproof bag and towed it along with her sandals.
“Why?” asked the old man.
“Don’t I have to cover my shoulders and legs out of respect? I’ve had to do that for the other Greek churches I’ve been in.”
The priest looked at Charlotte as though seeing her properly for the first time. He let his gaze drop from her face down her body and she began to wonder if she was safe here alone with him. Before she had time to pursue this thought, however, he raised his gaze to her face again and sighed, as though terribly tired.
“God made both skin and cloth and loves you equally in both,” he said. “He is with you dressed and undressed. He is in your clothes, and so always sees you as naked. He is God and sees us all as naked all the time. What use are clothes to Him? Religion, churches and chapels and monasteries, often forget that God sees beyond the covers that we put around the world. They forget that the ceremonies they perform have function, have purpose beyond simply tradition or habit or worship. When ceremonies and rules become all-important, then God is forgotten. Here, the ceremonies are about a purpose. They have a function. They are not about simply the look or the sound or the history of things. You may enter this church of the Order of St John of Patmos dressed however you wish, as long as you respect the work that is done here and not just the ceremony that surrounds it.” He stopped and sighed again, as though exhausted by his speech. Charlotte, unsure as to whether to be embarrassed by her lack of clothes or by the fact that she had asked about her lack of clothes and so drawn attention to it, simply nodded and followed him into the church.
The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror Page 84
