Jenny White: The Abyssinian Proof

On the lid was an image worked in black niello of Jesus standing on a cloud, face shrouded, a tablet falling from his slack fingers. Below him sat a man with a striped turban on his head, holding a miniature model of a church in one hand, the other reaching confidently for the falling tablet. Behind the man stood an angel with powerful wings, her right hand resting protectively on his shoulder. The angel was weeping. The Greek inscription read, “Behold the Proof of Chora, Container of the Uncontainable.”

“Why is the angel crying?” His daughter had squatted down beside him, her voice magnified and oddly distorted.

Isaak thought for a moment. “I don’t know, Melisane.” He drew his fingertips across the niello figures. “It’s so old that no one knows what these pictures mean anymore.”

“Who’s that?” She pointed at the man in the turban.

“That I can tell you. This is Theodore Metochites, the great-grandfather of your grandfather,” Isaak told her.

She looked confused. “How many grandfathers is that?”

Isaak smiled and ran his hand through his daughter’s black curls. She was his child by an Abyssinian slave who had died in childbirth. Despite the objections of his family, he had acknowledged the child and taken her in.

He was aware that his son was listening too. “Theodore lived more than a hundred years ago. You’re descended from a great man. He was Grand Logothete-a minister of state and a diplomat. He was also a great scholar. Do you recognize the church he’s holding? It’s our church, Saint Savior in Chora.” Isaak put his finger on the turbaned man. “And he built it.”

His daughter traced the angel’s wings with her finger. “What’s inside?”

“It contains the Proof of God,” he answered softly. “It’s something our family has promised to guard.”

“Is God in here? He must be very small.”

Isaak smiled fondly at his daughter. “He’s very small and very big, all at the same time. God is in everything,” Isaak took his daughter’s pudgy hand and pressed it against the lid of the reliquary, “but this is the closest we will ever get to him on earth.”

They remained like that for a moment, father and daughter connected through a mystery.

“I’ll take very good care of him. I promise, Papa.”

“I know you will.”

He had never looked inside the reliquary and he had no idea what kind of proof resided within. All he knew was that he held in his hands the most powerful relic in Byzantium. It was said that one of his ancestors had brought the Proof from Abyssinia in the time of Theodore, almost a hundred and fifty years ago. Theodore had made the reliquary for it, and it had been kept in the vault of the Hagia Sophia cathedral. The emperor had charged the Metochites family with looking after it. Three weeks ago, Isaak had brought it back to the Church of Saint Savior in Chora, the church designed by Theodore, who had lived the last years of his life in the attached monastery. Michael, Isaak’s son, was now caretaker of the church.

Isaak looked up at the serious face of his son, who would henceforth bear the burden of this responsibility.

“You remember what to do?” They had been over their plan many times.

Isaak and his wife would go to fetch Isaak’s mother. Later tonight, they would row the two boats through the underground channel, board the ship sent by his Venetian business partner, and leave this doomed city. They had spotted it that morning from the sea wall: a fast, low-slung galley flying the prearranged blue banner. By some miracle, it had slipped past the approaching Turkish ships.

Along with the Proof of God, Isaak had brought their most valuable belongings-a small, ancient icon and objects made of gold and precious stones that could be traded for their lives, their passage on the boat, and their freedom. Should the family be separated and unable to board, Michael was to take his sister and the reliquary and seek refuge with Melisane’s Abyssinian relatives in the city. If the Turks took the city, Isaak believed the Abyssinians were less likely to be put to the sword than the noble families of Byzantium. The Abyssinians would protect the reliquary containing a treasure from their own land. When he was able, his son was to restore the reliquary to its rightful position or find a permanent hiding place for it.

Isaak could sense the Turks massing outside the cistern, beyond the heavy masonry of Constantinople’s walls, their armor creaking, their lances stretching to the horizon like blades of grass. The city walls groaned against their weight. He imagined he could hear the mellifluous vowels of their language fall incongruously from their harsh throats. These Muslims did not drink wine, he had heard, nor did they eat pork. He imagined they stank of horse, sweat, and leather.

The chill of the cistern crept into his marrow and he began to shiver. Behind him, his wife was weeping. He went over and put his arm around her. She looked up into his face, and in her eyes he saw the sad devotion that had flattered him early in their marriage, and of which he had foolishly tired. He kissed her forehead and whispered something in her ear. She smiled, nodded, and pressed her face against his chest. For the first time in his adult life, Isaak was afraid.

Mary, Mother of God, Container of the Uncontainable, Isaak prayed intently, protect us now.

He cocked his head and listened, as if the sound of an invasion could penetrate the stone walls and soil that separated him from the besieged city. Michael stood beside him, also listening, a stricken look on his face.

Isaak went back to the reliquary. He reached down and brushed his fingertips over his ancestor’s face in farewell, silently begging his forgiveness. In the wavering torchlight, Theodore Metochites’s serious eyes seemed to look directly at Isaak, in admonishment for leaving him in such a forsaken place. Isaak wrapped the reliquary carefully and handed it to his son. Their eyes met and Michael nodded briefly.

Isaak pulled his wool cloak tighter around his shoulders. It was time to fetch his mother. His wife would have to accompany him to the gynaeceum, the women’s quarters, as men were not permitted. He knew his father would be on the ramparts with their emperor. At that moment, he realized with anguished certainty that he would never see his father again.

Isaak embraced his son and leaned down to kiss his daughter. She turned her cheek away in pique, so Isaak let his fingers linger in her curls.

Michael kissed his mother’s hand and pressed it to his forehead.

“Come now,” Isaak said gruffly. “Enough time for that later.” He reached for his wife’s hand and drew her into the darkness. They felt their way through the tunnel, then crept noiselessly out of the crypt and through the garden into the lane.

They ran through the dark streets toward his mother’s house near the land walls. These massive fortifications, constructed in the fifth century, had withstood Turkish onslaughts in the past, as they had those by Huns, Avars, Russians, Saracens, and other invaders for a thousand years. But Isaak had heard of a new weapon fashioned for the Turks by a Frenchman, a cannone as long as five men laid head to foot, that they said could cut through walls like a scimitar through flesh. As they approached, they encountered more and more people running in the opposite direction.

A man stopped them and said urgently, “It’s started. You have to turn around.” As he ran off, he called over his shoulder, “We’re all going to the cathedral.”

A terrible cry rose from beyond the city walls, from the throats of eighty thousand men set loose. Isaak grabbed his wife’s hand and they began to run. An unearthly thunder smashed the air and, a few moments later, a great blast of exploding masonry. The screams of men tore the night. Behind them, the bells of the ancient cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the church of the Divine Wisdom, began to toll.