Neil Olson - The Icon

“I grew up in the village where it lived. Just like your Papou, though I was much younger.”

“Then you knew him.”

“I thought I had said as much. Not well, he went to Athens when I was still a boy, and only returned to join the guerrillas after the Germans came. In fact, I don’t ever remember meeting him until the morning he caught my brother and me in the abandoned chapel.”

“Christ,” whispered Matthew, understanding coming at once,

“you’re Kosta’s brother.”

“So you know about that.”

“I know what my grandfather told me.”

“I would like to hear what he said. Please.”

“Your father burned the church and took the icon. Kosta killed Mikalis, the priest, when he tried to intervene. Then your father sent you and your brother to hide in the chapel while he…I don’t know what he intended to do. Make a deal for it, or sell it later when things died down. He told my grandfather where to find you once he realized that my godfather was going to get the truth out of him sooner or later. Assuming Andreas would spare you. Fotis killed your dad. My grandfather tracked you to the chapel, shot your brother, and retrieved the icon.”

The priest was silent as Matthew spoke, his large hands gripping the table edge. It occurred to Matthew that the older man might be hearing some of these things for the first time.

“I don’t know,” Ioannes began slowly, “about everything you say. It was years before I heard the whole story, and then just little pieces from different people. The fire in the church was a mystery. No one knew for certain who started it. Many said the Germans did. Some accused the andartes instead. Your grandfather’s was the name on many people’s lips.”

“The atheist. Of course they would blame him.”

“Yes. I cannot rule out that Andreas speaks true, that my father did do it. I was too young to understand what was happening. I remember firing that big pistol at your grandfather, half praying to kill him and half praying to miss. Kosta told me to stop, but I was only following my father’s instructions. Protect my brother. Ten years old, I could barely hold the gun. Your grandfather was like a ghost. It was said he could vanish at will, and I believe he does have that power. He vanished from that rocky hillside, then suddenly he was coming through the door, bigger than life, an avenging angel. He must have struck me. I don’t remember. I do remember waking up. They were arguing, cursing each other, and Andreas stepped over and shot Kosta in the head. Just shot him.”

“That must have been terrible to see.”

The priest nodded vigorously.

“I had seen the Germans shoot people, people I knew. And I was aware of the communists, the black marketeers, like my father, the collaborators, so I knew that our own people killed one another, but I had never seen that. Watching my brother die was, yes, it was terrible, but strange too. I had been hit on the head and felt sick and dizzy, so I wasn’t sure it was real at first. And then Kosta had been so badly burned, so badly, in the fire. He was in great pain. I don’t know if he would have wanted to live like that. What your grandfather did was merciful, I believe. Maybe even intentionally so. Which did not keep me from hating him for years.”

“It’s amazing that your brother made it to the chapel at all in his condition. You must have half carried him there.” “No, I could not touch him because of the burns. But he leaned upon me with one hand, and carried a long stick, like a staff, in the other. Moaning with every step. What a sight we must have been. Some mad prophet and his disciple, though I don’t believe anyone saw us. And I had the icon tucked under my arm, wrapped carefully. It was a clumsy bundle, and I carried it for hours, but it seemed to possess no weight. It was the lightest burden imaginable. I remember unwrapping it on the little altar table in the chapel, just after I lit the candle, and seeing those eyes, and falling into that space. I felt the strength in it then. Bigger than me by far, almost too great for man to experience. I was awed, frightened even. It was good preparation for what happened next.”

“Andreas brought you to the monastery.”

“Amusing, isn’t it? The atheist was the instrument of my faith. He should have killed me, that would have been the sensible thing. Perhaps it was this bargain with my father that stayed him.”

“Maybe he just couldn’t do it.”

“Yes, that’s what I decided later, when I thought about it. But it is pleasant for me to know that my father bargained for my life. It is difficult to despise one’s father, but more difficult to do otherwise with mine. The icon undid him. He was that altar boy who stole the papers from the elder Müller, and he remembered what was in them. I heard him speak of it to my brother, though the memory did not come back to me until I read the pages myself. He destroyed our family, destroyed himself. This information, that he pleaded for me before he died. It’s a little gift. I thank you for it.”

“And you stayed at the monastery,” Matthew said, with some surprise, and some odd eagerness. “You became a priest, even after all that you saw.”

“What else to do after all that I saw? Go mad or find God. I was still young enough to believe in a higher purpose behind the horror I had witnessed. I had lost my mother the year before, then my father and brother together. My sisters were married and gone, there was nothing for me to return to. My soul was desolate, but my heart and mind were open. I was ready for the Word. I was very fortunate. A few years older and I would have turned to cynicism, cruelty. I would have turned my back on Christ, as your grandfather did, as many young men did during those years. By the time my sister found me in the monastery, two years later, I had no desire to leave. I was home.”

“But you did leave. I don’t know what your position is in the church, but you’re fluent in English, you get sent on sensitive assignments. Not the life of a monk.”

“More a politician, or a spy, yes? I assure you that I am ill-suited to it. I was fortunate also in my mentor. A monastery can be a hard place for a young boy, but the abbot was a kind man, and your grandfather must have told him my tale. There was no other reason he would have taken me in. He saw right away that I was unprepared for the rigors of religious discipline, and taught me slowly. I learned English, a little French. I was even allowed to read some religious philosophy when I was older. The Orthodox have always emphasized asceticism and prayer above learning. My abbot was more cosmopolitan, and must have known that monastic life was merely a stopping-off place for him. Perhaps he sensed that the same would be true for me. Or perhaps I give him too much credit. Maybe he simply needed a protégé, and there I was, clever, and young enough to be molded to his purposes.”

“What happened to him?”

“He is dead now, but first he made his way up the church hierarchy to the Holy Synod itself. I think he hoped for me to replace him there, but I was too much of a dreamer, too little of a politician. Another of his protégés was elevated, and that is the man I now serve.”

“The man who sent you here.”

The priest’s face grew troubled, and he broke eye contact with Matthew.

“He sent me, yes, because I could identify the icon, and because I have had dealings here in the past. But Tomas and your godfather were ahead of us, and more killings followed.”

“More? You mean in addition to those during the war, or have there been others since?”

“I mean throughout its existence,” hissed Ioannes, guttering the flame. “The icon carries death in its wake. We no longer know how to treat an object of such preciousness. The mind-set has been lost. It overwhelms us, possesses us, makes us mad with longing. These many days I have spent searching for it, searching for you, have given me time to think. I do believe that things happen for a reason, even terrible things. I was granted this time to know the teachings of my own spirit. My mission is no longer the one I was sent upon. Voices have spoken to me.”