Van Loon was prodding the beds: ‘They are pretty rich, these old Russians, huh?’
Neil nodded and began emptying his rucksack: shaving-case, socks and pants and cigarettes, and paperbacked editions of Conrad, Graves, Raymond Chandler, Roget’s Thesaurus and a couple of books on Greece.
Van Loon unpacked only his bottle of ouzo, now barely two inches deep, and they shared it till it was empty and a bearded monk appeared to summon them to supper. The refectory was vast and dim, with peeling frescoes round the walls, musky with incense. There were less than fifty monks left in the monastery; they stood now along two wooden tables, heads bowed, as the abbot intoned a sepulchral Russian grace. Neil and Van Loon were led to places reserved at the head of the abbot’s table. Opposite them stood M. Martel. He gave Neil a stiff bow; and again Neil found the man’s face oddly familiar.
The grace continued for a long time. Many of the monks began to grow restive, like schoolboys, muttering to each other and fidgeting with their pewter knives. As soon as it ended they clattered over the benches and began pouring out wine from earthenware jugs along the tables.
Neil leant across to M. Martel and said, ‘Did you find what you were looking for last night?’
‘Looking for?’ The man’s face froze for a moment.
‘Yes — the gold coin you lost in the yard.’
‘Ah, that!’ He gave Neil a faint smile. ‘Yes, I found it’ He turned and introduced them to the abbot.
Neil and Van Loon were sitting on either side of a bald wrinkled monk who spoke English with an American accent; he explained that he had left his home town of Kharkov in 1912 and spent his whole life on Mount Athos, except for a break of ten years between the wars at a Russian seminary near Wisconsin. His Middle-West accent was coloured with a Damon Runyan vernacular consisting largely of gambling expressions. He kept turning to them both and yelling, ‘C’mon, kids, let’s anti up with the vino!’, refilling their mugs every few minutes. Conversation with him was not easy as he was very deaf. At one point Neil asked him if he had ever been to Chicago. The old man bent his head sideways: ‘Come again!’
‘Have you ever been to Chicago?’ Neil repeated, louder.
The monk thought for a moment, then nodded: ‘It is twelve miles from the sea.’
Neil gave up.
The abbot was talking to M. Martel in French, telling him about the illuminated manuscripts in the monastery library. The Frenchman listened intently, asking specific questions about the Sanskrit writings and some ancient texts that were believed to have come from Persia.
‘You would do better to go up to Simonpetra for the older works,’ the abbot explained. ‘Here we have mostly Russian writings from the Middle Ages. We lost many beautiful texts,’ he added, ‘when the Communists attacked us after the war. Those were bad times. They came here with rifles and there was shooting up in Karyes with the gendarmerie. They even brought women — women who carried guns and laughed at the old monks who could not understand.’ He shook his bearded head, and the wrinkled monk shouted at Neil, ‘I read a couple o’ books of Mr. Arnold Bennett! You ever read him?’ Neil said he had. Beside him the abbot was telling M. Martel, ‘Before I die I should like to leave the mountain for a few months and see what the world outside is like.’
‘When were you last there?’ asked M. Martel.
The abbot thought for a moment. ‘I left St. Petersburg as a novice fifty-seven years ago.’
The Frenchman smiled grimly: ‘You will find things very changed.’
The abbot nodded: ‘Yes. But there is nothing wrong with change. Life is a great country that must be advanced across, not retreated over. It is the things that have not changed that I fear most — like the violence and cruelty of Man.’
‘Violence is sometimes necessary,’ M. Martel murmured.
‘It is never necessary,’ said the abbot gently. ‘Violence is an act of stupidity, of impatience and intolerance. It achieves nothing, it only destroys. God did not create Man in order that he should be violent.’
‘Man has to defend himself against his enemies,’ said M. Martel. ‘Do you think that stupid and wrong?’
The abbot paused. ‘That is a hard question. I can only answer by saying that I believe we should always try to reason with our enemies.’
‘Reason!’ cried the Frenchman. ‘Reason with the Communist bandits who came to burn your Sanskrit writings, to pillage your oneels and jeer at your monks?’
‘Yes,’ said the abbot, ‘even with them. We have been attacked and pillaged many times. By the Turks, by pirates, by ignorant godless men who came with no motive but to destroy us. But God understands and he protects us.’
While the abbot had been speaking, Neil had sat watching M. Martel. The man’s eyes were a luminous ice-grey, and his hands had tightened round his mug of wine till the knuckles were bone-white. He was listening to the abbot with a small, cruel smile. ‘Monsieur l’Abbé!’ he said at last. ‘You talk of Turks
