34

He rode by himself to the airport. Rae, Wende, and The Nephew had no interest in making a side trip to visit the famous chapel in the mountains from Biblical times. Neither did Prin. He wanted to go there, now, because it was the only functioning church left in the country.

Two hours after leaving the government complex, Prin and his driver, a new one, had made it out of the old city and onto the blunt, bland road that ran to the airport. They exited at a juncture between the blast walls that Prin hadn’t noticed on the way into the old city. They went through set after set of security checkpoints until they were cleared to proceed along a thin, dusty road towards a large, orangey-looking mountain, all hard and jagged-edged. There were no green daubs of trees or peaky snowcaps or even clouds floating by. This was all and only mountain.

This driver had been quiet throughout the drive, leaving Prin with his thoughts. Which was, which were, awful.

Molly wasn’t taking his calls.

He needed to kneel down.

He needed to kneel down and name what he had done. The video cameras on the rooftop would show nothing. The nothing of two bodies pressed together for a minute, maybe two. They wouldn’t show his lusting, leaking, suppurating heart.

How long? How long, Lord, had he been wanting and not-wanting something with Wende? But in fact it didn’t matter that it was Wende. This wasn’t about Wende. What mattered was that somewhere inside that dented thing, his heart, he did not want Molly.

For how long? How long, Lord?

And how to tell that? Who could hear that and let him go on?

He had to kneel.

“First time to see Kaneesat al-Himar al-Muqaddas?” the driver said.

“Is that the name of the place where we’re going?” asked Prin.

“Is what we call it here,” said the driver.

“And what’s the translation, into English?” asked Prin.

“Hard to put in English,” said the driver.

“Give it a try,” said Prin.

“Okay. My English is not so good when it’s not stuff about driving, okay? But, Kaneesat al-Himar al-Muqaddas, I think it would be something like the Church of the Holy Ass,” said the driver.

“So then, okay, well, how did this figure in the crucifixion? Do you know? Perhaps it’s named for the donkey that brought Christ into Jerusalem for Passover?” asked Prin.

“Yes. Okay. Very holy place for Christians. Tremendously holy, as you Americans say. But not donkey. I mean, you know—”

“Oh. I’m sure there’s something a little lost in the translation. Also, I’m Canadian,” said Prin.

“Okay,” said the driver.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the trip. Theirs was the only vehicle going in to the site. Now and then a tour bus or shuttle came at them from the opposite side, and each driver would pull halfway onto the sand-coloured gravel shoulder so both could pass at the same time, waving. On either side of this narrow road it was all rubble and flatness broken up here and there by clumps of yellow-green shrub and metal-box houses and spindly goats. There was laundry—bedsheets? Tunics? Tablecloths? Was there any point in bringing Molly something from Dragomans?—hanging flat on lines in the hot, dead air. He could even make out the smudge marks of last night’s fires in a few places. Prin saw no people at all. He needed to kneel down and he needed Molly to answer the phone, but shouldn’t this worry him, too?

Were they all at work?

Or were they also hiding?

From what?

At the foot of the mountain, the van came under sudden shade and they turned off into a parking area half-full of other vans. Prin’s driver made it clear he was going to sit on a bench under a clump of mopey midget palm trees and play games on his phone until Prin returned from the chapel. And so Prin walked ahead, alone, breaching the Biblical mountain and wishing his wife would answer the phone.

He tried her again. In vain.

This whole trip—had it been in vain? Had it been about his vanity? Pride? Lust?

He knew others would laugh at this suffering, at what he was treating as adultery, what Molly was treating as adultery. What bare, numb lives they must have. Not the lives he and Molly had been given, had given each other, were trying and trying and trying to give their girls.

He swallowed dry and hard at the idea of his daughters asking him what he’d done on his trip. Were the people nice? Did he make any new friends?

Someone emerged from the shadows wearing a red chequered kaffiyeh. His arms were full of water bottles for thirsty sir. Prin waved him away and made for the church. His wife would not answer the phone. He needed to kneel down and tell and tell and tell and wait in the candle flicker to hear something, someone, tell him he should, please God, what?

Prin walked forward.

Here, sun and shadow were at odds in close quarters. The sun lit up long, jagged ruts and cuts, runnels that had gone dry along the mountainside. A few hundred paces away and more in shadow than sun sat a small, squat church carved into the mountain base where the cleft closed. Its facade was a mishmash of bas-relief Eastern domes and classical columns beneath a cross that looked like two big dry biscuits laid one upon the other at ninety degrees. Prin pinched his phone’s screen to get an extreme close-up of the cross.

“STOP!” said a man.

Not just a man, a monk.

He was big, broad, and dressed in black and wore a hammer-thick silver cross under his big bird’s nest of a beard. He was standing just ahead, arms crossed, beside where the line to get into the church began.

God’s very own bouncer.

The monk pointed to a sign nailed into the rock wall behind him.

“We must preserve the holiness of this site. NO pictures!” it read in various languages.

He then jerked his thumb to the side, to a gift stall staffed by two vacant-faced women in black kerchiefs.

“Buy pictures there when you leave,” he said.

“NO!” said another monk, who emerged from the other side of the line. He was as barrelled and grim-faced and nest-bearded, only he wore a heavy silver cross on a jute-coloured cassock.

“Buy pictures there when you leave,” he said.

He pointed to another little gift stall, just up from the first one. It was staffed by two vacant-faced women wearing jute-coloured kerchiefs.

Prin nodded at both monks, who were now glaring at each other, and slipped his phone into his pocket. He walked on, joining other pilgrims lined up to enter the chapel. Directly in front of him was a large group of Africans, all of whom were dressed in bright blue jumpsuits and carried white umbrellas. Two turned, smiled, and nodded at him, sweat beading down their faces. They leaned in and Prin smelled floral cologne and Lux soap.

They wore nametags that read I’M BLESSED BRUCE and I’M BLESSED ROY.

“Hello,” Prin said.

“BLESSED! And blessings to you!” said Bruce.

“BLESSED! and blessings to you!” said Roy.

“Thank you,” said Prin.

“Is this your first time visiting the Holy Church?” I’M BLESSED BRUCE asked him.

“Yes. Can you explain why the church is called, according to my driver’s English translation—” asked Prin.

“Hello boss! You have questions? You would definitely like a tour guide! I spent a day with Harrison Ford when they filmed an Indiana Jones here! Han Solo! You would like to skip the line! Don’t worry, I’m government-certified and can arrange everything, totally for free. No cost at all. Guaranteed. 110 percent. I just want to practice my English! Come with me! Are you from England? Manchester U! Princess Kate! Princess Meghan!”

A loud, small, smiling man had appeared out of nowhere. He was bony and a little gristly, his clothes old and threadbare; his sandals mere notions of footwear. He wore a lot of lanyards, all of which appeared to hold formal credentials of one kind or another.

“Can you tell me why this church has this name?” Prin asked.

“Of course! I can explain everything!” the guide said.

He took Prin’s wrist very gently. Then he closed his grip and pulled a little. The Africans watched, smiling beatifically and nodding along with the conversation.

“Please, just come with me,” the guide said.

“Blessings to you and to you,” Prin said.

The Africans stopped smiling when Prin stepped out of line and passed them and the rest of their group, the guide leading the way in a righteous and barking manner as if he were trying to get Princess Diana past all the photographers to her car. But when they emerged near the front of the line, he didn’t take Prin directly into the church. Instead, he took him to the furthest giant stone door from the small, dark entrance. He did a thing with his neck, cleared his throat, and began.

“Welcome to the Church of the Holy Seat, which is one of the most important historical sites in all of the world and a source of greatest national pride in Dragomans, regardless of your race, religion, or sexual orient nations, except North Korea. As to why this church is of greatest significance, there are several reasons, many dating back centuries and even millennium falcon. Sorry, Star Wars joke. I made it with Harrison Ford and he loved it. Now, to begin our exploration, I would like to read the following statement by our President regarding the importance of preserving our innovative heritage. He declares—”

“Sorry, but I have to catch a flight. Is there a pamphlet or something I can look at? And can we go in?” Prin said.

The guide nodded. Why wouldn’t anyone let him give this speech? His wife and mother thought it was excellent. At least, his mother did.

“Of course we can still go in. But please understand, with a wife and children to support, and also a mother, if I can’t practice my English on you, there’s need for a small fee for me to arrange everything,” said the guide.

“What if I don’t pay?” asked Prin.

“No problem, boss. Nice to meet you, enjoy your visit to the church and the rest of your time here in beautiful Dragomans. Like us on the Facebook, and please tell all your friends in English to visit Dragomans. Now, sir, please be pleased to return to the line. And I am required to call the brother over there if you do not respect the rules,” said the guide.

He shrugged and grandly bowed and extended his arm to show Prin the way back. Prin looked at the beefy monk with his crossed arms and didn’t want him called over. He looked at the line. The Africans hadn’t moved yet, and another tour group had arrived. They were sullen white people, glowering men in denim and fanny packs and pouty women with shotgun makeup faces and black rocker booties and matching purses with lots of gold crosses and dingles dandling from them.

They were either Russian or Polish.

He looked down. He saw a rock move. It was a baby lizard, round and coloured like a rock. He moved his toe towards it and it was gone.

“How much?” Prin asked.

“Please, I can’t say. That is not our way here. Whatever you can offer, I will gladly accept, and then I will arrange everything,” the guide said.

Prin took out his wallet.

“My wife just had a new baby … jaundice!” the tour guide said.

Prin gave him a twenty-dollar bill and didn’t wince, not particularly, when the tour guide looked shocked. He beamed to himself, then at Prin before running off to the gift stalls and returning with two poorly photocopied pamphlets. They were histories of the church, exact copies of each other, with certain words underlined or crossed out in one, and the opposite set underlined and crossed out in the other.

“And now, distinguished, honoured guest, welcome to the Church of the Holy Seat,” the guide said.

Perhaps he’d been mishearing the entire time. If this was the Church of the Holy See, then did it have some special papal significance dating to St. Peter? Or perhaps it was a Holy Sea —somewhere else Christ had walked on water, in one of the apocryphal Gospels?

Holding the pamphlets, Prin followed the guide inside. He felt a little like a running back moving behind a blocker as the guide pushed through the people colliding everywhere in the back of the church. Eventually, they were organized into two sort-of line-ups to approach the holy site located behind the main altar.

According to two millennia of pious tradition, the church was founded on the site where a young man, who had been a follower of Jesus, came after escaping the Garden of Gethsemane during Christ’s arrest. As the Gospel of Mark recounted, the young man left the Garden so fast he dropped his loincloth, which was all he was wearing. According to pious tradition, naked the young man ran and ran and ran, out of Jerusalem and across Egypt, across the desert of Lehabim, and finally into Dragomans. Naked and terrified, he finally reached a cleft in a great mountain, where he found a rock ledge, sat down, and wept. He wept knowing he had abandoned his Lord in His time of trial, and knowing what had happened to Christ while he ran away, knowing what God had allowed to happen to His Only Son for the sake of all weeping fleeing terrified humanity. And according to pious tradition, this nameless and naked young man wept so much the rock ledge beneath him softened from all of his tears and took on the shape of his seated body (buttocks), which remained there until his death. Four centuries later, all that remained of this young man was a mound of grey dust resting upon the ledge in the cleft of the mountain.

Now one day, two men who were part of a new order of desert monks happened to be travelling through these mountains seeking a spot for the monastery they planned to found together. They came to this cleft and one of them (as to which one, the pamphlets emphatically differed) swept this grey dust off the ledge before sitting down to rest and see whether from this ledge he could observe the greatness of God and contemplate it for the rest of his days. Upon sweeping away the dust and sitting down, the monk discovered this holy seat, imprinted with the mark of the naked young man of Mark’s Gospel (buttocks) who had fled from his Lord’s side and wept unto his own death, having abandoned his God and feeling terrified that his God would abandon him. But God did not. Instead, God led this pious monk (again, as to which one, the pamphlets emphatically differed) to the place where the naked young man had stopped running and sat down. And because both monks claimed for the rest of their lives to have been the first to have swept away the dust and discovered the imprint of the holy seat and sat there, and because each likewise claimed to have recovered all the young man’s ashes and kept them in a sacred urn, two rival orders of monks were founded that day. And for sixteen centuries since, these orders had shared custody of the church built around the Holy Seat.