From The Holy Mountain Read Free Page B

flirtatiously around Christophoros's ankles, hissing at each other and snatching at the scattered fins.
    'Have you managed to have a word with the Abbot about my seeing the manuscript?'
'I'm sorry,' said Christophoros. 'The Abbot's away in Constantinople. He's in council with the Ecumenical Patriarch. But you're welcome to stay here until he returns.' "When will that be?'
'He should be back by the Feast of the Transfiguration.'
'But that's - what? - over a fortnight away.'
    'Patience is a great monastic virtue,' said Christophoros, nodding philosophically at Kallistos, a rather scraggy, bow-legged old tom-cat who had so far failed to catch a single fishtail.
    'My permit runs out the day after tomorrow,' I said. 'They only gave me a three-day diamonitirion. I have to leave by the morning boat.' I looked at the old monk. 'Please - I've come all the way just to see this book.'
    'I'm afraid the Abbot insists that he must first question anyone who . . .'
'Is there nothing you could do?'
    The old man pulled tentatively at his beard. ‘I shouldn't do this,' he said. 'And anyway, the lights aren't working in the library.'
'There are some lamps in the guest room,' I suggested.
    He paused for a second, indecisive. Then he relented: 'Go quickly,' he said. 'Ask Fr. Yacovos: see if he'll lend you the lanterns.'
    I thanked Christophoros and started walking briskly back towards the monastery before he could change his mind.
    'And don't let Yacovos start telling you his life story,' he called after me, 'or you'll never get to see this manuscript.'
    At eight o'clock, I met Fr. Christophoros outside the katholikon. It was dusk now; the sun had already set over the Holy Mountain. In my hands I held the storm lantern from my room. We walked across the courtyard to the monastic library, and from his habit Fr. Christophoros produced a ring of keys as huge as those of a medieval jailer. He began to turn the largest of the keys in the topmost of the four locks.
    'We have to keep everything well locked these days,' said Christophoros in explanation. 'Three years ago, in the middle of winter, some raiders turned up in motorboats at the Great Lavra. They had Sten guns and were assisted by an ex-novice who had been thrown out by the Abbot. They got into the library and stole many of the most ancient manuscripts; they also took some gold reliquaries that were locked in the sanctuary.' 'Were they caught?'
    'The monks managed to raise the alarm and they were arrested the following morning as they tried to get across the Bulgarian frontier. But by then they had done much damage: cut up the reliquaries into small pieces and removed the best illuminations from the manuscripts. Some of the pages have never been recovered.'
    Three locks had now opened without problem; and eventually, with a loud creak, the fourth gave way too. The old library doors swung open, and with the lamps held aloft, we stepped inside.
    Within, it was pitch dark; a strong odour of old buckram and rotting vellum filled the air. Manuscripts lay open in low cabinets, the gold leaf of illuminated letters and gilt haloes from illustrations of saints' Lives shining out in the light of the lantern. In the gloom on the far wall I could just see a framed Ottoman firman, the curving gilt of the Sultan's monogram clearly visible above the lines of calligraphy. Next to it, like a discarded suit jacket, hung a magnificent but rather crumpled silk coat. Confronted dragons and phoenixes were emblazoned down the side of either lapel.
    'What is that?' I whispered. 'It's John Tzimiskes's coat.'
    'The Emperor John Tzimiskes? But he lived in the tenth century.'
Christophoros shrugged his shoulders.
    'You can't just leave something like that hanging up there,' I said.
    'Well,' said Christophoros irritably, 'where else would you put it?'
    In the gloom, we found our way past rank after rank of shelves groaning with leather-bound Byzantine manuscripts, before drawing to a halt in front of a cabinet in the far