A long table took up most of the room, and around it sat 16 men. As a group, they had a wild and wasted look, with skeletal limbs, hollow cheeks, unshorn beards, and fixed stares. Maurice submitted to the scrutiny of this assembly of saints like a martyr to the flames. His salvation depended on his winning a place among them.
At the head of the table, Apa Zeno, the holy father of the colony, looked off vacantly and scratched himself. To his right sat his deputy, Elias, who raised a hand. “Brothers, let me introduce our guest. This is Maurice, who came here forty days ago to make himself a monk. Brother Thomas, who has been training him, tells me he is ready to share our common meal. Consider well whether he should be allowed to settle in our holy place. When we meet together after the meal, I want to hear what is in your hearts. Then I will speak to Apa Zeno, and he will make his judgment.”
Maurice took a seat at the table beside Apa Zeno. Despite his nerves, he was hungry. On the plate before him was a small loaf of bread that made up only half the normal ration. Nearby lay a large plate filled with a lumpy yellowish paste and an earthen jug.
“Maurice, do not be shocked by what you see on our table. When we gather for a meal of fellowship at the end of the week, we ease the strictness of our regimen. The loaf before you is fresh-baked. Soon this plate of cooked lentils will be passed around along with wine to fill our cups. Each brother will serve himself in order of seniority, according to our custom. As he does, he will ask you a question or two to determine the state of your soul. Will you answer us truthfully, in the name of Christ?”
Maurice recalled with shame how on his arrival to the colony his vocation had almost been lost when he slipped into a lie. In any case, he knew it would do his soul no good to enter this brotherhood by guile. “I swear to God.”
Elias led the group in the Lord’s Prayer. Having served Apa Zeno and himself from the large plate, he passed it on to the monk to his right. “This is Brother Moue,” Elias told Maurice. “After Apa Zeno, he was the first among those gathered here to settle in our place.”
Moue must at one time have been quite plump. His pale, sagging flesh hung loose upon his skeleton like an oversized garment. He dropped a heaping spoonful of lentils onto his plate and reached out to take another.
“That’s enough, brother,” Elias said. “No more than three spoons.”
“That was only two.”
“I was counting, brother. What is your question for our guest?”
Moue set down the spoon and put his hand to his head. “My devil oppresses me, brother. I can’t come up with anything to ask.”
“No need to hurry,” Elias said. “I will give you time to think.”
Moue looked down at his plate. “How can I think with this savory food in front of me?”
A brother with a very long white beard and a nose like the beak of a bird of prey shouted, “Shame, shame!”
Moue responded by sticking out his lips. Maurice was surprised to witness such pettiness in these spiritual men.
Elias raised a hand. “If the brother is hungry, let him eat. Brother Moue, I will come back to you at the end. Will you pass the plate to Brother Saius? Brother Saius provided for our meal today. We thank you, brother, for your generosity.”
Saius’ withered skin stuck to his bones, and his hollow eyes shone with zeal. He bowed his head. “To humbly serve my brothers is the highest honor I know.” He took a single spoonful from the plate with the air of one making a grave sacrifice and set down the utensil. He turned to Maurice. “How much have you been eating here?”
“As much as I’m given. Two small loaves a day with a pinch of salt and sometimes a little oil.”
Saius nodded and raised an eyebrow. “That must have been hard for you to get used to.”
Maurice had until now avoided speaking of his former master, but he was determined to have no secrets here. “I was eating even less before I came here, when I was living with a city monk named Leonides.”
“How much did you eat when you were with him?”
“A piece of bread about as large as one of these small loaves.”
“How often?”
“Almost every day.”
“Nothing else?”
“We took it with salt and oil.”
“Oil? What kind?”
“Radish oil. It had a strong smell and burned my tongue.”
“Radish oil is not bad,” Saius said, “but oil of horseradish is better. How often did you take it?”
“A drop with every meal.”
“Oil with every meal?” Saius’ eyes gleamed in their darkened pits. “I haven’t taken oil in seven years.”
“Your virtue is well known here, brother,” Elias said, “but remember it is not worthy of you to display it to others. Will you pass the plate to Brother Justus?”
Justus was the elderly beak-nosed brother who had found fault with Moue. He received the plate, saying, “Pardon me.” He turned to Maurice and explained, “In my day, when one of us took food or drink from his brothers’ hands, he would excuse himself. Now the monks have lost their manners.”
“So you remind us every week, brother,” Elias said.
A sort of silent commotion broke out across the table. Several brothers were making furious gestures to remind Moue to pass down the jug of wine after filling his cup. Moue rolled his eyes in irritation, picked up the jug, and set it before Saius.
“None for me,” Saius said quickly and passed the jug on to Justus without filling his own cup. “I have not taken wine in twenty years.”
“You should not be so proud,” Justus said. “Vainglory is a sin.”
“So is judging others, brother,” Elias told him. “Do you have a question for our guest?”
Justus, in vexation, tugged his white beard, which went down to his waist, and turned to Maurice. “You spoke of city monks. Are you one of those blasphemous hawkers of Christ?”
“Once I was. May God forgive me. In the world, the way is not clear. It’s easy to fall into sin. That’s why I have come to the desert. Here there’s nothing to distract me from observing the commandments.”
“Shame!” Justus shouted. “Do you deny the Devil?”
“No, no, my friend,” Maurice replied. “What I mean is this. Here in the desert, we can meet the enemy face to face.”
Justus shot a look at Saius. “So long as one is not stuck in the snares of vanity and pride.”
“Remember my warning, brother,” Elias chided. “Pass the plate to Brother Anub.”
Anub received the plate of lentils with muttered thanks and blessings. Maurice recalled that on the way here Thomas had pointed out this brother’s cell with its exceptionally low, slanted ceiling. Though of average height, Anub stooped so markedly over his plate that he must have fit inside that dwelling without strain.
Elias asked, “Do you have a question, brother?”
Anub turned his mild eye on Maurice, and a weak smile played about his mouth. “I do, if our guest will excuse me. I know it is not right for me to put a question to anyone, sinner that I am. Pardon me, then, but I admit there is something I wanted to know, if you don’t mind telling me. Or if you do, then I pray you will forgive my asking and forget I ever opened my lips.”
“Brother, go ahead,” said Elias. “Our guest has been called here to answer our questions.”
“I hope he wasn’t called on my account,” replied Anub in alarm. “Sinner that I am, it is not right for me to summon others. No, it is I who should come when others call. Indeed, I would come before I’m called, if only it weren’t ridiculous for me to suppose that anyone had use for me.”
“No need to be so modest, brother. Tell us your question.”
“Excuse me,” Anub said and shook his head. “It is wrong for me to babble on like this and waste the time of my brothers and our guest. I won’t say another word, except to apologize for letting my tongue wag when it would have been better to keep silent.”
“That is all right, brother,” Elias said. “Will you pass the plate to Brother Aaron?”
Aaron alone among the group had kept a robust form, with a broad chest, thick neck, and heavy shoulders. He lifted the plate of lentils and, with three flicks of his wrist, helped himself to rather more than his share. Despite Saius’ abstention, Maurice began to wonder how much would be left for himself.
“Brother Aaron is our steward,” Elias said. “He prepared this meal, and he is entrusted with many other duties besides. Do you have a question for our guest, brother?”
The long white scar running down the side of Aaron’s face gave him an air of menace, which he went on to dispel with a kindly smile. “Have you learned to plait and weave?”
Maurice nodded. “Thomas is satisfied with my work.”
“That is good to hear,” Aaron told him. “It is my job to sell our goods to the dealer. How many baskets can you make in a week?”
“I finished three this week.”
Saius called out, “I can make sixteen.”
“Remember, brother, that few can work as hard as you,” Elias said. “Brother Aaron, if you have no more questions, will you pass the plate to Brother Phib?”
Phib was a small and gloomy-looking brother. He fixed Maurice with wide spellbound eyes and held his index fingers to his temples. “Have you ever seen a demon with horns like this?”
Maurice told him, “No.”
“Have you ever seen a demon with a forked tail?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen a very tall demon with eyes like the morning star, the smoke of a furnace coming out of his nose, and a flame coming out of his mouth?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen a demon in the shape of an innocent child hardly old enough to walk?”
Maurice was about to deny it when he thought again. “I might have. How would I know?”
“Quite right!” Phib exclaimed. “We never know what forms the demons may take. They can even assume a pious appearance and feign the speech of holy men.” He rose in excitement. “Who can say they are not gathered in this very room?”
“Sit down, brother,” Elias said. “You need have no fear of evil spirits in the company of your brothers and our holy father. Will you pass the plate to Brother Paphnutius?”
Paphnutius had large ears that stuck out under his hood like the handles of a jar and a large mouth that hung open as he spooned out his meal.
Elias said, “Brother, remember your fine.”
Paphnutius nodded and put down the spoon.
To Maurice, Elias explained, “On Tuesday, Brother Paphnutius was careless and knocked over his jug of water. Apa Zeno granted him permission to refill it, but he imposed a fine of one spoon of lentils for wasting our precious supply. Today he may take only two spoons.”
“I take only one,” Saius interjected.
“Brother, remember not to measure yourself against your brothers,” Elias said. “Brother Paphnutius, do you have something to ask our guest?”
Paphnutius’ wide mouth formed a genial smile. “Maurice, you may think because we are monks we live like angels on earth. In fact, we are made of flesh like you. Do not imagine we know nothing of the passions of the body.”
“Shame!” Justus shouted. “I haven’t touched a woman in thirty years.”
Paphnutius’ eye was sly. “Brother, you are ninety years old.” Justus grimaced and pulled his long white beard, and the others laughed. “You see, Maurice, the Devil wars against us all. You need not be ashamed to admit your temptations. Tell me, have you ever been tempted by women?”
Maurice turned up his palm. “What man has not?”
“A wise answer,” Paphnutius said. “Have you ever acted on your desires?”
Maurice wanted to show he was willing to bare his soul, but unhappily his relevant experience was scant. “Once,” he said finally. “I saw a woman from my village walking to a spring to bathe. I followed her. When she reached the pool, I climbed a palm tree on its banks. I hid in the tree and watched her take off her clothes and wash herself.”
“Is that all that happened?”
“Yes. After some time, I fell asleep, and when I woke up she was gone.”
Paphnutius’ lips turned down in disappointment. “There must have been other times,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to tell us.”
Maurice nodded gravely. He glanced at Apa Zeno, who was chewing a mouthful of bread. The elder’s eyes were not directed at anyone in the room, and he did not seem to be following the conversation. “Last year I was tricked by two men I thought were my friends. They took me to a brothel in the city. To please my friends, I gave money to a woman there. When she invited me to lie down with her, I felt ashamed and ran away. Only then did I see I had been under the power of demons.”
“Great is their number in the air around us,” cried Phib, “and they are not far from us! Though the doors be shut, they can enter in and haunt the very atmosphere we breathe!”
“Quiet, brother,” Elias said. “Brother Paphnutius, will you pass the plate to Brother Isaiah?”
Isaiah’s brow and cheeks were studded with rosy pustules. As he spooned lentils onto his plate, his face contorted in anguish and tears welled in his eyes. “Woe is me, woe is me, who shamelessly dares to satisfy my stomach with this food that appalls my God. Who will not lament for me, who will not shed bitter tears on my behalf? Have pity on me, have pity on me, have pity on me, o friends!”
“Brother, do you have a question for our guest?”
“I do, I do.” Isaiah clenched his fists. “O woe is me, woe is me, who has the audacity to ask a question of his fellow man when I will be questioned by the Lord on the Day of Judgment!”
“That is right, brother,” Elias said, “but give us your question.”
Isaiah sighed deeply and fastened his moist eye on Maurice. “I will ask you to solve a great mystery for me. Every day, I sit and furrow my brow, but I never get closer to finding the answer. Can you tell me why we prefer corruption to incorruption?”
Maurice almost smiled. The answer was too easy. “Because we are sinners.”
“Woe is me, woe is me, you speak the truth!” Isaiah cried. “O woe is me, woe is me, who also speaks the truth but does not do right! Woe is us, woe is us, who, though condemned for many sins, demand the praise due to holy ones! Who will not grind their teeth and rend their garments for our sakes?”
“Take courage, brother, and pass the plate to Brother Aioulios.”
Aioulios had an upright bearing and fine proportions. Were he not underweight like the others, he might have been deemed well-built. His thick jet-black beard would have been much admired in Maurice’s native village if only it were trimmed and combed. “This morning I was standing with Brother Eulogios” — he indicated the brother sitting to his right, a slight, wiry man with a wispy red beard — “at the door of the cell that we share, and I saw a dove —”
“A dove here?” Eulogios demanded in a hectoring tone. “Impossible!”
“Surely God has granted doves the power of flight to go wherever they will?”
“Has the valley been depleted of seeds and grains, forcing doves to fly to the desert in search of food?”
“A dove can go a long distance without food, brother. Think of the one sent to Noah in the midst of the waters.”
“Next you’ll tell me you saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove!”
“You saw it yourself, a white dove perching on a rock in the gully.”
“I couldn’t see it very well, but it certainly wasn’t white.”
“It was pure white in the light of the dawn.”
“It was more black than white. It might have been a crow.”
“A crow?” Aioulios asked. “Are you blind?”
“It was more like a crow than a dove,” Eulogios replied. “Indeed, it must have been a crow.”
“Brother Aioulios,” Elias asked, “do you have a question for our guest?”
Aioulios turned to Maurice. “Tell me what we saw this morning.”
Eulogios said, “That is my question too.”
Maurice saw he must find a way to put an end to their quarrel. “Can the two of you agree you saw an animal with wings?”
“Wings?” Eulogios asked. “I did not see it fly.”
Aioulios said, “It soared away through the gully.”
“Soared? More like it fled.”
“It flew along the ground like a mourning dove.”
“It ran along the ground like a rabbit, a black rabbit.”
“That’s enough, brothers,” Elias said. “Brother Eulogios, serve yourself and pass the plate to Brother Peter.”
Every monk around the table looked quite unwashed, with their hair and beards tangled in thick masses and smut caked under their nails and in the deep lines drawn in their faces by the sun or the years, but Peter was by far the filthiest. While the others seemed merely to have offered no resistance to the accumulation of grime on their persons, Peter looked as though he had willfully smeared himself with dark grease from head to foot. He ignored the serving spoon and with five sooty fingers scooped up a portion of lentils from the plate to fill his mouth. Maurice expected Elias to reprimand him, but he simply asked, “Brother, do you have a question for our guest?”
Peter’s impish eyes stood out in his blackened face. “Did you ever eat raw meat?”
Maurice did not know whether the question was to be taken in earnest. Since the other brothers looked on with sober expressions, he ventured a straightforward answer. “No.”
“Ha, ha! Did you ever drink hot urine?”
“Never.”
“Did you ever play with yourself in the marketplace?”
“No, never.”
“Ha, ha!” Peter nodded. He lifted the wine jug with two hands and took a swig.
Maurice was rather shocked by this behavior, but Elias merely said, “Bless you, brother. Will you pass the plate to Brother Callimachus?”
Callimachus had a broad high brow and a high-bridged nose. His great, deep eyes were thoughtful. “Were you named for the holy saint and martyr Maurice of Thebes?”
Maurice was ashamed not to know. “Who is that?”
Callimachus leaned forward. “A man of our own country who commanded a legion loyal to Emperor Maximian. In the second year of this Era of the Martyrs, Maximian dispatched them to go and persecute Christians. But Maurice and his soldiers refused this cruel task because, as a matter of fact, they were Christians themselves.”
“Brave men! What happened to them?”
“Maximian gave them no choice. So Maurice called his men together and persuaded them to lay down their lives in the service of Christ. On behalf of his legion, he wrote to Maximian to declare they preferred an innocent death to a life of wickedness.”
“What did the emperor do?”
“What do you think? He had every man in the legion put to death. They laid aside their arms and offered their necks to their persecutors’ sword, and the earth was littered with the bodies of the faithful.”
Maurice was amazed to learn of the glorious actions of his namesake. “I never heard that story.”
“Eusebius of Caesarea writes of it in an appendix to the ninth chapter of his Ecclesiastical History,” Callimachus told him. “The appendix is missing from certain recent copies, but I read it in a manuscript owned by the Archbishop of Alexandria.”
“Brother, remember that we must avoid the works of men, even those the world considers holy,” Elias said. “It is safer to limit yourself to the word of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures and to the sayings of Anthony and Onesiphorus. Will you pass the plate to Brother Frange?”
Frange was bald and toothless. Since he could not chew his bread, he sucked on it until soft and thoroughly soaked in spittle. He squinted nearsightedly at Maurice, who sat only two places away. “Old as I am, I am a very junior brother. It’s been no more than three years — or is it four? No, only three — since I left the valley. Tell me, was the flood high or low this year?”
“Sorry, I don’t know. I was living in the city, where the flood doesn’t reach.”
“I have seen it low, and I have seen it high,” Frange said. “Many men are ruined when it doesn’t go high enough. But when it goes too high, many more are ruined. Poor wretches. I don’t have to worry about that now. But, tell me, is the crop good this season?”
“I can’t say. I was living on the side of a cliff.”
“I don’t care myself. Good or bad, it doesn’t touch me now. In the valley, men grow rich or go to ruin depending on the crop. That’s their headache. I’ve got nothing to do with it anymore.”
“You are right, brother, to put it out of your mind,” Elias said. “Will you pass the plate to Brother Thomas? Brother, you know our guest well. Do you have a question for him?”
Thomas turned to meet Maurice’s eyes. “I want to know what made you choose the solitary life.”
“I did not choose it,” Maurice told him. “God called me to this place.”
“But how do you know? God does not speak to you, I believe. What is it in your soul that tells you you belong here?”
It was true Maurice could not directly hear the call he heeded and so had been left to work out its utterance from the fact that he found himself set apart by the Lord. The difference he sensed between himself and those among whom he had formerly lived was clear enough, though he struggled to describe it, even to himself. So he merely said, “I want to be saved and fight the demons.”
“Great is their number in the air around us!” cried Phib. “Let us keep our hearts watchful against those terrible and cunning foes!”
“Calm yourself, brother,” Elias said. “Brother Thomas, you can pass the plate to Maurice.”
Maurice looked down at the plate in despair. The residue left in it would hardly amount to a spoonful.
“Brother Moue,” Elias continued, “I said I would come back to you. Have you thought of something to ask our guest?”
Moue sat licking lentil juice from his grubby fingers. He peered at Maurice’s plate. “Are you going to leave that loaf of bread?”
Maurice had not dared to touch his bread while being questioned. Now he picked it up without hesitation and said, “Please take it, my friend.”
Alan Horn lives in Brooklyn. He writes the Substack The Invisible Head and has recently completed the novel excerpted here.
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I really enjoyed this and want to compliment specifically the reality of the characters. I felt like you weren't trying to make me feel any particular feeling about them other than that they were "real"
This is the best writing I've seen in TMR, very well done! The reader feels Maurice's impatience and is tested as he is, by these all-too-human characters.