Holy Week

Holy Week is truly a funeral: the church mourns, and puts on no adornment until Saturday evening (the Saturday of Light), in rejoicing at the resurrection of (the Bridegroom) triumphant. So if the villager has named it (the Sorrowful Friday), he has spoken truly.

The village is hushed and reverent, and grief fills every house. They give no greeting of “happy be your day,” nor wish one another good evening; their salutation is “Glorified be the Son of the Lord, Jesus,” and its answer, “Peace be to Our Lady Mary the Virgin.” The church is like a beehive—people coming and people going. The walls heave sighs, the apse groans, the dome wails with broken strength. Prayers every day; and as for the fast, do not ask. None breaks it but the freethinker, and none eats meat, eggs, or laban but the scant of faith..

***

In those days... Father Timothaos came to the sanctuary before sunset and tolled the bell in mourning. Then he drew from his bosom his rosary, to pray to Him who rides upon the East and the West. He began pacing the church court with majesty and gravity, as though walking on eggs, sighing now and then and looking at his rosary to see how far he had come. The Thursday evening prayer is long, and the people were slow in coming.

Strange of aspect is the priest—had Darwin known him, he would have needed no other proof. His eyebrows squat beneath a jutting forehead like a tilted ledge above two nostrils set in carved rock, between which stretches a flat, cleft nose; and beneath this fountain, two mustaches like ram's horns, under which dangles a beard so long that were it not black as a raven's wing you would take it for a broom.

Glory to the Creator! He gave him ugliness without reckoning; and, as though He wished to make of him a portent, He struck him with smallpox, which greatly lessened his dignity. And his great affliction was that his eyes did not match: one eye carob-brown, the other blue—the beholder would take it for a blue bead against the evil eye. For this the nickname (Blayq) prevailed over his given name, Boutros, before he was anointed with the holy oil a priest of God; then his fatness added to his ugliness, so that since his consecration to the Creator he is squat, thick, black, and glistening.

The priest was merry in his youth, fluttering about, never settling anywhere, with no business but hopping around the village; you heard nothing but “Blayq's gone, Blayq's here.” The child of his father's old age—a boy whose father died, and a mother does not bring up.

As for the elders of the village, they would shake their heads, marveling how Blayq had gone and another had come.

And an old woman said to the one sitting beside her: “God, God—how you once were, Umm Qablan, and what you have become!” Her son had heeded her, and became priest of the parish. And so it proved: her house prospered, and she was at rest from the blast of the oven and the tannur. She used to eat from her spindle and her carding—and she became a princess.

As for Father Jirjis, who had become helpless and decrepit, he sat among his children, listening. He moves his lips and his coal-black beard and says nothing. He remembers his old glory, the days when the parish had a single shepherd, and he mutters; at last he wrinkled up his nose all at once and said with sharpness and mockery: “Fie upon the days we have come to! Since when do they consecrate to the Lord the refuse of mankind, like our brother-in-God... This, a priest? This is a good-for-nothing.”

His sons tried to hush him, but he raised his voice to spite them and cried twice: “This is a good-for-nothing! This is a good-for-nothing!”

As for the young men, Father Timothaos's companions, they withdrew and formed a ring on the open ground under the ban tree, talking and winking at one another, now nibbling their laughter down, now snapping it short. Uneasiness showed on Father Timothaos's face, and he kept bearing down in his walk toward them, hoping to catch a scrap of their talk. The priest fears the tongue of one of them: Zakariya. And Zakariya is a young man past thirty, tall and lean of frame, his skin pale and sallow. He took the vow of celibacy at twenty-five, put on the black striped qunbaz, stuck the inkwell in his sash after the manner of the shidyaqs of that age, and gave his fair beard free rein—though he kept trimming it, so that it never grew long. His comrades made sport of his short beard at first, but he bore with them and beat them.

The shidyaq is a man of praiseworthy qualities: he casts down his eyes if his neighbor-girl comes in sight; he keeps the commandments of God and the Church; he never missed a mass or a procession. He is the church's mainstay—its qandaq—and the priest's deacon, so as to earn the reward. He has not broken his fast of a Saturday since he came of age and reason, and has eaten neither meat nor eggs nor laban on Wednesday and Friday; and in Lent he shuns oil besides. It is all one to him whether the Patriarch permits it or not: he is his own patriarch. A devotee of the Virgin Mary—should (the Lady's scapular) slip from his neck, he would sleep no quiet sleep that night. And were it not for his mockery and his sporting with people, none would doubt his sanctity. For this trifling with the afflicted is a great sin that brings a man down to hell; and a man abides its aftermath, punishing himself in spite of himself: God brings forth in the offspring of the mocker the defects of those he mocked..

Zakariya was forever making game of his friend the priest, and it went to his head.. Not a girl in the village escaped his teasing or an evening at her house, and often he would knock at several doors in a single night; and wherever he alighted, the house filled with uproar and laughter.

He had all but married Tabitha, daughter of Daher Hanna; but he obeyed his mother and made a eunuch of himself after the death of the village priest, studied theology and Syriac, and after two years became a venerable priest.

***

The dead man is his Father's only son, and the night was moonlit, tempting people out of doors; so the people came, even the aged and infirm, to attend the playing of the tragedy of the Redeemer. Everyone's dress was black, as though the village had turned into a monastery. Many will not straighten their garments, in abasement of themselves; and some of the old men wear their cloaks inside out, as though the departed were their cousin in the flesh. All cross themselves when they come face to face with the church. Some kiss the cheek of the door, others the corner of the sanctuary; and whoever takes the short way touches the wall and crosses himself. Greeting goes to the priest first, then to the company; and His Reverence answers by a stir of his beard. They gather in circles, and their talk is like the rustling of the harvest—their carpets the grass, their chairs the stones.

And Miss Tabitha came, having curled her hair as was her custom. Some thought her impudence monstrous—Zakariya above all—and others excused her: the girl had been left on the shelf since (Blayq), and now she is angling for a bridegroom, and it is no concern of hers whether Christ died or lived. Tabitha was not eloquent, but she had motions more telling than speech for stirring and beguiling. A brown girl, passable of face, she kissed the cheek of the door with her full lips—an eloquent kiss—and saluted the venerable Father, who answered with a slight bend of the head; and without knowing it his voice rose, saying: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Then the shidyaq Zakariya and his band, gathered about the trunk of the oak, laughed; and our Father Timothaos took note, and sighed, praying God to cover him.

None but the small boys kissed his pure hands; he would grant them the divine blessing, which they received bareheaded, and furnish them with a smile that showed only on his brow, for his mouth is hidden behind a dense forest... And what harm if he smiled at these while at his prayers—the Lord said: Suffer the little children to come unto me.

Timothaos is the hero of his farces. He calls him Blayq even after the priesthood, and the priest goes wild; but he fears falling into his tongue, and so keeps silence, chafing. And Zakariya has no mercy on him at all. He knows him for a spinner of yarns, one who claims heroism yet dies of terror if a fly buzzes; so he invents for him exploits and violent adventures.

***

The people assembled and the choir prayer was raised. The Synaxarion told the tale of the trial, the scourging, and the crucifixion, and the moans of the old women and the sighs of the old men rose as though the blows were falling on their own skins. The lessons were read—chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest—and at the last Father Timothaos singled out the shidyaq Zakariya for the reading of (the Praxis)—a chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He read with great skill a chapter he had prepared since mid-afternoon: the story of that (disciple) who died at Jaffa, when Mar Boutros was called from Ludd—Lydda—expressly to raise her from the dead. And no sooner had Zakariya reached the passage—“and Boutros prayed and cried: Tabitha, arise! and she opened her eyes”—than Tabitha shrieked from among the women: “Would that you might never open your own! May his life be cut short—how heavy his blood is! This, a shidyaq? This, a qandaq? This is a devil!”

Then everyone laughed, even the ancient priest. As for Zakariya—and such was his way—his gravity neither lifted nor lessened; he carried his chapter through to the end as though nothing at all had happened.

And Father Timothaos read several Gospels in a trembling voice, for the shock had been no light one. The prayer was ended, and the people dispersed in sorrow.

On Friday morning they vied in gathering flowers of every shape and color, and came to strew them at the feet of the cross set up at (the Royal Door). Toward noon they held the funeral and bore the bier three times round the nave of the sanctuary, then kissed it one by one in farewell. And the priest and the deacons buried it behind the altar, that it might rise on the third day, as it is written.

In the evening they came back and clustered about their priest. The Reverend seated himself upon a high stone, with Zakariya and his flock ringed around him. Talk moved along—the Friday prayer is a light one. The shidyaq Zakariya set about shearing the Reverend's kindly wool, scratching him just where it itched; and so he paraded the memories of his youth, before his mother wrapped him in the robes of the holy degree. Someone mentioned the ringing of the bell, and Zakariya said: “Our Father Timothaos rang the bell of Mar Abra fifty rounds.”

The priest said: “And you speak truth, shidyaq—a hundred and twenty rounds with these two hands, and twenty more with my waist.”

One of them found it too much, and said: “Uff!” Said Zakariya: “Be quiet, you—I know better than you. Before my own eyes he snapped the chain of the guard of Dayr Qozhaya with a single squeeze. If I told you about the stone basin of Mar Sassine of Haqel, you would go mad. He played with two sixty-oqqa weights as with toys; and the wellhead stone of this church well of ours—had it a tongue, it would bear witness.” Then he turned to the priest and said: “By the life of your holiness, my master—tell them.”

The priest drew a breath and said: “I have forgotten; remind me, shidyaq.”

Said Zakariya: “The story of the ogre.”

“The story of the ogre—an ogre who thought to lord it over us: I wrung his neck.”

“Go on, don't be bashful.”

“His head went into twenty pieces.”

“Great is your reward—the people were rid of his mischief.”

The people whispered among themselves: “Can the tales of the ogre be true?”

Zakariya heard, and began jeering at them: “The priest tells us, and we say: true, true!” Then Zakariya turned to his company with that solemn, comical air of his—only his eyes spoke—and they all hung their heads, biting their lips. Then he turned his face toward the priest and said: “What ails you! Your stories tonight are scant. Don't change your custom.”

So the people gave ear to hear their priest's tales, believing that he devoured men whole. As for Father Jirjis, he began to puff and grumble and try to get his word in; his son would check him, and he would mutter and fall still.

Zakariya waited for something from the priest, and nothing came, so he said: “Hear the latest tale—this one is far greater than the tales we have heard.” The priest said: “Which one?” Zakariya answered: “The leopard that met you when you were coming back from... from the feast of Mar Nohra.” The priest laughed and said: “Your memory is good, shidyaq. I flung him down in the river, and when I had given him his fill of blows I pressed on his chest one press, and the blood gushed.”

Said one of them: “They say he threw you.”

“Threw me—poor thing! My own soul cast me down, and I had resolved to kill him; but I said: leave him, boy; do not bring a calamity upon your village. The affair happened in the village outlands.”

A thick word escaped the old priest; his son caught it up by raising his voice and buried it... and the thread of the talk was not broken.

The innocent evening-talk passed on to the disciples of Christ, and the people marveled how they had turned coward and left the Savior in the hands of the Jews. They did not remember the bread and wine of the mystical supper: they kept not watch with him a single hour; they left him to weep alone in the garden; and Boutros, who had been accused and laid claim to manliness, denied him three times before cockcrow.

Their dispute grew hot until it became a din, as though they were on Golgotha at the hour of the crucifixion. Then said Zakariya with a cunning simplicity: “Alas!—the rice was there, and the spoons were lost. Had Our Lord lived in the days of our master Father Timothaos, the Jews would have been taught their worth.”

The priest felt the barb a little, but swallowed it. And he said gravely: “Hear, shidyaq: this was the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory. Had He wished, He could have blotted out every trace of the Jews. You heard the word of the Gospel yesterday: His saying ‘I am he’ threw them flat on their backs.”

And the priest so admired his own eloquence that he stirred with a mighty stirring, and his silken beard gleamed under the light of the moon. Zakariya's band laughed, and the priest kept them company in laughing, without cause; nor did he stop there, but turned upon the company the turn of a logician who has laid down a two-edged proof; and heads swayed in admiration, and many a lip curled in disdain. And the priest saw Tabitha staring fixedly, eating him with her eye; and he remembered the days when his body was not yet a temple of the Holy Ghost, and took refuge in grace, and put Satan to shame. And he craned his neck and swelled with dignity.

As for Zakariya, he sat clasping his knees in his hands and said: “Right is with Bl—... with the priest. By God Almighty, had he been present at the fray, he would have blown Caiaphas and Yuhanan to pieces.” The priest wagged his head and said: “Such is our portion—how sweet is what God ordains!”

The talk pleased the priest, and Zakariya grew expansive and said: “But the apostles' fear is plain, my master. There is Mar Yuhanna, the beloved of Christ—he was the first to run. Then observe how many times they took fright after the resurrection. I remind you: they used to start at their own shadow... poor souls.” The priest knit his brows and said: “It cannot be denied there was something of that in them. Had they been as they ought, Mar Boulos would not have said of them: And He chose the weak things of the world, to shame the strong.” Zakariya cried out eagerly: “That is the very truth, my master!” Father Jirjis heard this talk and gathered and braced himself, but his son quieted him. As for the people, they listened to the pair of them, admiring their priest's eloquence and their shidyaq's address.

One of them asked why Christ appeared first to the women, and then to the disciples. The sly Zakariya answered: “So that the news might spread at once—women's tongues are long.”

Tabitha muttered a word which her neighbors understood, and they laughed; Zakariya paid it no heed, for he was preparing a fresh cast. He said: “My master—tell me: if Christ appeared to you, would you take fright at him like the disciples?”

The priest smiled like a man on his guard and said: “What do you say?”

Said Zakariya: “What I say is... O mountain, no wind can shake you.”

The priest answered: “That grace is far from me—I am a sinful servant.” Then he heaved a great sigh and rose to prayer, saying: “Ah, would that it were! Would that it were!”

And he entered the church with Zakariya at his side, saying within hearing of the people: “Who knows? Who can tell? God's wonders are many.”

As for the ancient priest, he heaved himself up and rose, saying: “Ay—we have become a plaything.”

His son twitched the edge of his jubba, and he shouted: “Let me be! A plaything and worse. Were it not for shame and modesty, I would mow off my beard. An ignorant priest!”

***

On Saturday afternoon the church put off her black garments and decked herself in rejoicing at the resurrection of Him who gave life to those in the tombs. They prayed a light prayer that pushed the nightmare from their breasts, and went back to their houses rejoicing, after their chant: Christ is truly risen.

But Father Jirjis stayed on in the church, praying and awaiting the midnight mass; and certain old men and old women would come to visit the tomb. No sooner had midnight come than Father Timothaos returned and rang the bell with a ringing that reminded them of the youth of the illustrious (Blayq); and the people hurried to the church, and the deacons divided into two choirs to serve the mass. And at the very hour in which the stone was rolled from the tomb that the Lord might rise, Father Timothaos came forward to the right door of the apse, censing and chanting in Syriac, magnifying Him who conquered death by death and asking His mercy for all the faithful.

Then there rose up before him, from behind the altar—where the tomb was—an old man wrapped in a white sheet. The priest fell back in terror; and the old man advanced and stood in the doorway. The children and the women screamed, the men were seized with dread, and everyone raced for the door.

Father Jirjis woke from his doze at the uproar and got up to inquire, and found before him the shidyaq Zakariya. He said to him: “What has happened, shidyaq? Where have they gone?”

Zakariya answered him: “They fled—Christ appeared to them.”

The priest marveled and said: “And where is Father Timothaos?”

Said Zakariya: “He went with them.”

The priest struck his hands upon his thigh and said: “Yah, yah, yah, yah—O the disgrace of us! They took fright at the Lamb of God!!”

Then he pondered a little and said to Zakariya in disgust: “For shame, shidyaq, for shame. You are a good man. God was angry with the village, and so ordained him a priest. A mistake was made—infallibility belongs to God alone.”

Zakariya mumbled some words, and the priest hobbled off to bring the people back; and he heard his wife—the khouriyeh—say: “If we had any luck, Christ would have appeared to our priest.”

The priest shouted at her: “Right you are, you addled woman! Go pray, go! Is this a face to which Christ would appear?”

And he had not taken more than a few steps when Father Timothaos and the flock came back, shamefaced. Father Jirjis said to him with all composure: “Finish your mass; deliver us.”

As for Zakariya, he remained standing at the right of the altar of incense, like the angel... his eyes saying to his friend Father Timothaos many things...