...And Dreams Are Dreams

The memory of Saint Peter’s of Rome, with its marble luxury and metaphysical barbarity, was still fresh in Doña Rosita’s mind. Thus she was relieved to find herself inside the shell of this church, which, were she to slightly raise her wide shoulders, would envelop her like a snail and keep her under its protection. The walls were blackened, and the fragmented mosaics looked like shards of pottery that experts had stuck back together, leaving the missing parts painted in ocher. There were ancient and more recent icons; telling them when the monastery was built, the old woman led them to a smaller enclave, where the foot of the apostle stopped and formed, along with the other stones, the sign of the cross. It was forbidden to step there. The old woman was from Constantinople, and she assured them that with the courage of faith, one can fall into the fire and not be burned. They left her a small tip and went out into the courtyard.

Doña Rosita had been completely immersed in the experience; she remembered now, as she lay sprawled on the pavement, the drunkenness that had come over her as she had looked into the intense eyes of the old woman. She remembered the fulfillment she had known, her soul finally quenching its thirst, as she listened to the old lady talk of the lost grandeur of Constantinople; the Patriarchs; and the last king of Byzantium, who had turned into marble, with all the reverence inspired in her by that little church, lit by the flickering flames of two candles, its lamps burning constantly with the oil of faith. The metaphysical prolongation of this place, none of whose joys she had tasted, since everything that day was closed, made up for all the ugliness she had seen.

Everything that was being built around the little church was ugly. The blocks of flats that had overrun the Upper City were ugly. The cars that buzzed unnecessarily around the old castle were ugly. But the little old woman had saved the day. She had communicated the shiver of faith. The history of the monastery became linked to her own distant past, which had also been lost, mummified somewhere in the lost homelands of Asia Minor. Just as Don Pacifico, once he had seen Mr. Molkhos, found the strength to continue to live in this city, which, during the eighteenth century had been the birthplace and home of the last prophet of his race, so did Doña Rosita, by virtue of the thread handed to her by the old woman, find herself reconnected, in the shell of the church, with her own past — that of a Byzantine empress — and fortified by the power of faith, that unknown power that will keep us from burning should we fall into the fire. The eyes of the little old woman burned brightly as she spoke, and Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Savior, was the ichthus, the fish she would have for lunch. After all, He had been the first to give her that right: “Take, eat; this is my body….”

The second scene, following on the heels of the first, took place in Nafplion. As soon as they arrived, before they even checked in to the hotel, in the dusky light just before nightfall, Don Pacifico took her for a walk along the path that starts after the port, twisting around the mountain above the sea, where, in the distance, they could see a ship slowly approaching, cutting silently through the water’s satin surface, measuring time at its own pace, that of the daylight draining from the sky. They took a vegetation-choked offshoot of the path, and found themselves at a chapel that was above the main path and offered a better view of the open sea and the waters of the gulf. There was no one in the chapel; its icons were unguarded. They each lit a candle, Don Pacifico more in order to accompany her. There, too, appeared a woman, a sacristan, to collect the candles and lock the door for the night. They didn’t speak. The icons that had been stolen by lowlife tourists and antique smugglers had been replaced by cheap paper replicas.

Doña Rosita prayed to the Holy Virgin and then they went out to the courtyard, where an upper gallery over the white stone terrace looked out onto the sea.

The sun had long since disappeared behind the mountains of Arcadia, leaving the clouds to keep alive its memory; they too would soon become ashes. The slow-moving boat was gradually entering the gulf. It was the kind of moment that brings on ecstasy. And, as she breathed in deeply the sea air, Doña Rosita felt a wave of happiness swelling inside her: the location was beautiful, the hour belonged to her. This hour when the day burned out like a firework and when everything invited her to return to her deepest nature, which was intensely romantic.