He lodges at an inn for pilgrims run by a woman everyone calls Irena or simply Mother. She is a petite person with dark skin, always dressed in black; sometimes the wind whips her hair, which has gone completely gray, from under her black kerchief. Even though she is an innkeeper, they all address her with great respect, as if she were a nun, though it is known that she has grown children somewhere in the world, and that she is a widow. Irena oversees the prayers every evening and every morning and chants in a voice so pure it opens pilgrims’ hearts. She has what seem to be two serving-maids in her employ—at least Kossakowski thought they were serving-maids at first, only noticing after a few days that they were in fact castrates, but with breasts. He has to be careful not to stare at them, for if he does, they stick out their tongues at him. Someone tells him that there has always been an Irena here at the inn, for hundreds of years, and that that’s how it must be. This Irena comes from the north and does not speak flawless Greek, instead mixing in words Antoni often knows, so he thinks she is probably Wallachian or Serbian.
There are only men around, not a single woman (aside from Irena, but is she a woman?), not even a single animal that is female. It would distract the monks. Kossakowski tries to focus on a greenish-winged beetle traipsing down the path. He wonders whether it is also male . . .
Along with the other pilgrims, Kossakowski climbs to the top of the hill, but they cannot be admitted to the monastery. People like him are assigned to a special place in the stone house under the holy wall, where he sleeps and eats. In the early mornings and in the evenings they dedicate themselves to prayer according to the holy monk Gregory Palamas. This consists of repeating, “Lord Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me” a thousand times a day. Those praying sit on the ground, their heads curled into their stomachs, as if they are fetuses; as they do this, they hold their breath as long as possible.
In the morning and the evening a high male voice summons them to communal prayer—across the whole place you can hear it call, “Molidbaaa, Molidbaaa.” All the pilgrims drop whatever they are doing and race up to the monastery. Kossakowski associates this with the behavior of birds alerted to a predator by other birds.
By day, at the port, Kossakowski tends to his garden.
He has also reported to the port as a longshoreman, helping to unload the ships that come in once or twice a day. It’s not about the meager income he earns from this work, but rather about the opportunity to be with people, and to go up to the monastery and even enter the outer courtyard. There, the caretaker, a robust monk in his prime, receives food and other goods, gives them cold, almost icy water to drink, and offers them olives. These deliveries do not happen often, however, since the monks are largely self-sufficient.
At first, Kossakowski is resistant, viewing with some disdain the pilgrims possessed by that religious mania of theirs. Instead, he devotes himself to his walks along the stony paths that surround the monastery, along the heated earth, incessantly disrupted by the cicadas’ little bows, the land that from the mixture of herbs and resin smells like something to eat, like a dried herb-encrusted cake. On these walks Kossakowski imagines the Greek gods living here once, the very same ones he learned of at his uncle’s house. Now they return. They wear glimmering gold robes, have very light skin, are taller than people. Sometimes he almost thinks he’s walking in their footsteps, that if he hurries he might still be able to catch up with the goddess Aphrodite, glimpse her magnificent nakedness; the scent of hyssop becomes for a moment the half-animal smell of a perspiring Lord. He exerts his imagination; through it he wants to see them, he needs them. The gods. God. Their presence in this resiny fragrance, and especially the secret presence of some force that is sticky and slightly sweet, pulsing in every creature, makes it so that the world seems full, filled to the brim. He makes every effort to imagine it—this presence. His member swells and, like it or not, Kossakowski has to relieve himself on the holy mount.
One day, just when he seems happiest, he falls asleep at noon in the shade of a shrub. Suddenly the rumble of the sea wakes him up—it sounds ominous, even though it has been with him the whole time. Kossakowski leaps up, looks around. The high, strong sun separates everything into light and shadow. Everything has paused, he sees from afar the waves of the sea stuck in stillness, above them hangs an isolated seagull that looks like it’s affixed to the sky. His heart rises to his throat, he leans forward to try to stand, but the grass beneath his hands dissolves into dust. Everything turns to dust. There is nothing to breathe, the horizon has come dangerously close, and in a moment its gentle line becomes a noose. In this moment, Antoni Kossakowski realizes that the plaintive rumble of the sea is a lament, and that all of nature is taking part in this process of mourning those gods of whom the world has been in such desperate need. There is no one here. God created the world, and the effort of doing so killed him. Kossakowski had to come all the way here to understand this.
This is why he starts to pray.
Yet prayer fails. In vain he brings his head into his stomach, curling his body up into a ball, similar to how it was before his birth—that’s how they taught him to do it. Peace, however, does not come, his breathing won’t even out, and the words “Lord Jesus Christ,” repeated mechanically, bring him no relief. Kossakowski can only smell his own scent—the stink of a sweating, middle-aged man. Nothing more.
The next day, early in the morning, unswayed by Irena’s objections and unmoved by the responsibilities he’s casting off, he gets on the first decent sailboat and doesn’t even ask where it’s heading. He can still hear the call of “Molidbaaa, Molidbaaa” from the shore, and it feels as if the island is calling to him directly. Only out at sea does he learn that he is sailing to Smyrna.
In Smyrna things turn out very well for him indeed. He finds a job with the Trinitarians, and for the first time in a long while he manages to earn some decent money. He spares himself no expense: he buys himself a fine set of Turkish clothing. He orders wine. Drinking brings him enormous pleasure, so long as he has good company. He notes that whenever, in conversing with Christians, he mentions that he has been on Mount Athos, it arouses great interest, so every evening he adds some new detail to his story, until it has become a never-ending array of adventures. He says he is Moliwda. He’s happy with this new designation—which of course is not a name. Moliwda is more than a name, it’s a new coat of arms, a proclamation. His previous denomination—first name, last name—fits a little tight now, a little worn and insubstantial, as if it’s made of straw, so he gets rid of it almost completely. He uses it only with the Trinitarian brothers. Antoni Kossakowski—what’s left of him?