A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (21 page)

As the three of them proceeded into Caucasia, they disturbed flocks of pelican, whose earthbound ungainliness was miraculously transfigured by flight. Miss Fergusson’s irritation over the incident in Erzerum began to calm. Passing the eastern spur of Mount Alageuz, they gazed intently as the broad bulk of Great Ararat slowly revealed itself. The summit was hidden,
enfolded in a circle of white cloud which glittered brilliantly in the sun.

‘It has a halo,’ exclaimed Miss Logan. ‘Like an angel.’

‘You are correct,’ Miss Fergusson replied, with a little nod. ‘People like my father would not agree, of course. They would tell us that such comparisons are all hot air. Literally.’ She gave a pursed smile and Miss Logan, with an enquiring glance, invited her to continue. ‘They would explain that the halo of cloud is a perfectly natural phenomenon. During the night and for several hours after dawn the summit remains clearly visible, but as the plain warms up in the morning sun, the hot air rises and becomes vapour at a given height. At the day’s end, when everything cools down again, the halo disappears. It comes as no surprise to … science,’ she said with a disapproving emphasis upon the final word.

‘It is a magic mountain,’ commented Miss Logan.

Her employer corrected her. ‘It is a
holy
mountain.’ She gave an impatient sigh. ‘There always appear to be two explanations of everything. That is why we have been given free will, in order that we may choose the correct one. My father failed to comprehend that his explanations were based as much upon faith as mine. Faith in nothing. It would be all vapour and clouds and rising air to him. But who created the vapour, who created the clouds? Who ensured that Noah’s mountain of all mountains would be blessed each day with a halo of cloud?’

‘Exactly,’ said Miss Logan, not entirely in agreement.

That day they encountered an Armenian priest who informed them that the mountain towards which they were heading had never been ascended and, moreover, never would be. When Miss Fergusson politely suggested the name of Dr Parrot, the priest assured her that she was mistaken. Perhaps she was confusing Massis – as he referred to Great Ararat – with the volcano far to the south which the Turks called Sippan Dagh. The Ark of Noah, before it found its final resting-place, had struck the summit of Sippan Dagh and removed its cap, thereby exposing the inner fires of the earth. That mountain, he understood, was accessible to man, but not Massis. On this
subject, if on nothing else, Christian and Mussulman agreed. And furthermore, went on the priest, was it not so proven by Holy Scripture? The mountain before them was the birthplace of mankind; and he referred the ladies, while excusing himself with an ingratiating laugh for mentioning an indelicate subject, to the authority of Our Saviour’s words to Nicodemus, where it is stated that a man cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born once more.

As they were parting, the priest drew from his pocket a small black amulet, worn smooth over many centuries. It was, he claimed, a piece of bitumen which assuredly had once formed part of the hull of Noah’s Ark, and had great value in the averting of mischief. Since the ladies had expressed such interest in the mountain of Massis, then perhaps …

Miss Fergusson courteously responded to the suggested transaction by pointing out that if indeed it was impossible to ascend the mountain, then the likelihood of their believing that the amulet could be a piece of bitumen from the Patriarch’s vessel was not very great. The Armenian, however, saw no incompatibility between his two propositions. Perhaps a bird had carried it down, as the dove had borne the olive branch. Or it might have been brought by an angel. Did not tradition relate how Saint James had three times attempted to ascend Massis, and on the third occasion been told by an angel that it was forbidden, but that the angel had given him a plank of wood from the Ark, and there where he had received it was founded the monastery of Saint James?

They parted without a bargain being struck. Miss Logan, embarrassed by Our Lord’s words to Nicodemus, was instead thinking about bitumen: was that not the material used by artists to blacken the shadows in their paintings? Miss Fergusson, on the other hand, had merely been put into a temper: first by the attempt to thrust some foolish meaning on to the scriptural verse; and secondly by the priest’s brazen commercial behaviour. She had yet to be impressed by the Eastern clergy, who not only countenanced belief in the miraculous powers of human teeth, but actually traded in bogus religious relics. It
was monstrous. They should be punished for it. No doubt they would be. Miss Logan examined her employer apprehensively.

The next day they crossed a relentless plain of reeds and coarse grass, relieved only by colonies of bustard and the black tents of Kurdish tribesmen. They stopped for the night in a small village a day’s ride from the foot of the mountain. After a meal of cream cheese and salted salmon trout from the Gokchai, the two women stood in the dark air scented with apricot and looked towards the mountain of Noah. The range before them contained two separate crescendi: Great Ararat, a bulky, broad-shouldered mass like a buttressed dome, and Little Ararat, some four thousand feet lower, an elegant cone with smooth and regular sides. Miss Fergusson did not think it fanciful to perceive in the comparative design and height of the two Ararats a bodying-forth of that primal divide in the human race between the two sexes. She did not communicate this reflection to Miss Logan, who had so far proved dismally unreceptive to the transcendental.

As if to confirm her pedestrian turn of mind, Miss Logan at this point revealed that it had been a matter of curiosity to her since childhood how the Ark had succeeded in resting upon the top of a mountain. Had the peak risen up from the waters and punctured the keel, thereby skewering the vessel in place? For if not, how otherwise had the Ark avoided a precipitous descent as the waters had retreated?

Others before you have had similar reflections,’ replied Miss Fergusson with distinct lack of indulgence. ‘Marco Polo insisted that the mountain was made in the shape of a cube, which would certainly have explained the matter. My father would probably have agreed with him, had he given the subject his attention. But we can see that this is not the case. Those who have ascended to the peak of Great Ararat inform us that close below the summit there is a gently sloping valley. It is’, she specified, as if Miss Logan could not otherwise understand the matter, ‘approximately half the size of Green Park in London. As a place of disembarkation it would be both natural and safe.’

‘So the Ark did not land on the very summit?’

‘Scripture makes no such claim.’

As they approached Arghuri, which lay at a height of more than six thousand feet above sea level, the temperature of the air became more genial. Three miles below the village they came upon the first of the hallowed plantations of Father Noah. The vines had just finished flowering, and tiny dark green grapes hung intermittently among the foliage. A peasant put down his rough hoe and conducted the unexpected party to the village elder, who received their offering of gunpowder with formal thanks yet little surprise. Miss Logan was sometimes irked by such civility. The elder was behaving as if parties of white women were constantly presenting him with gunpowder.

Miss Fergusson, however, remained her dutiful and efficient self. It was arranged that later in the afternoon they would be conducted to the Monastery of Saint James; they would be lodged that night in the village, and would return again to the church the following day for their devotions.

The monastery lay beside the Arghuri rivulet in the lower part of a great chasm which extended almost to the very summit of the mountain. It consisted of a cruciform church whose stone was hewn from hardened lava. Various small dwellings pressed against its sides like the farrow of a sow. As the party entered the courtyard a middle-aged priest stood waiting for them, the cupola of Saint James rising behind him. He was dressed in a plain gown of blue serge, with a pointed Capuchin cowl; his beard was long, its blackness intertwined with grey; on his feet he wore woollen Persian socks and common slippers. One hand bore the rosary; the other was folded across his chest in a gesture of welcome. Something urged Miss Logan to kneel before the pastor of Noah’s church; but the presence and certain disapproval of Miss Fergusson, who dismissed as ‘Romish’ a large category of religious behaviour, prevented her.

The courtyard spoke less of a monastery than a farm. Sacks of corn were piled loosely against a wall; three sheep had wandered in from the nearby pasture and had not been expelled; there was a rank smell from underfoot. Smiling, the Archimandrite invited them to his cell, which proved to be one of the tiny
dwellings built hard against the outer wall of the church. As he was conducting them across the dozen or so yards, the Archimandrite appeared to touch Miss Fergusson’s elbow by way of courteous but strictly unnecessary guidance.

The monk’s cell had stout clay walls and a plaster roof supported by a sturdy central prop. There was a rough icon of some unidentifiable saint hanging above a straw pallet; the courtyard odours continued here. To Miss Logan it seemed admirably simple, to Miss Fergusson squalid. The behaviour of the Archimandrite also provoked differing interpretations: Miss Logan discerned an amiable candour where Miss Fergusson saw only sly obsequiousness. It seemed to Miss Logan that her employer had perhaps exhausted her stock of civility on the long journey to Mount Ararat, and had now retreated into a stony carelessness. When the Archimandrite suggested that the two ladies might like to lodge at the monastery that night, she was briefly dismissive; when he pressed his offer of hospitality further, she was brusque.

The Archimandrite continued to smile, and his mood still appeared to Miss Logan a gracious one. At this point a servant appeared bearing a rough tray on which were set three horn beakers. Water from the Arghuri brook, thought Miss Logan; or perhaps that sourish milk which they had already received many times on their travels from obliging shepherds. But the servant returned with a wineskin, and at a signal poured a liquor from it into the horn vessels. The Archimandrite raised his beaker towards the women, and drank fully; whereupon his servant poured for him again.

Miss Fergusson sipped. Then she put questions to the Archimandrite which provoked a severe apprehension in Miss Logan. This feeling was exacerbated by waiting for the guide to translate.

This is wine?’

‘Indeed.’ The priest smiled, as if encouraging the women to indulge in this local taste which was still clearly unknown in their distant land.

‘It is made from grapes?’

‘You are correct, lady.’

‘Tell me, the grapes from which this wine has been made, where are they grown?’

The Archimandrite spread both hands and circled to indicate the neighbouring countryside.

‘And the vines from which the grapes were plucked, who first planted them?’

‘Our great ancestor and forefather, parent of us all, Noah.’

Miss Fergusson summed up the exchange so far, needless as this seemed to her companion. ‘You are serving us the fermented grapes from Noah’s vines?’

‘It is my honour, Madam.’ He smiled again. He seemed to expect if not especial thanks, at least some expression of wonder. Instead, Miss Fergusson stood up, took the untasted wine from Miss Logan, and returned both beakers to the servant. Without a word she left the Archimandrite’s cell, swept from the courtyard in a manner which made three sheep instinctively follow her and started down the mountainside. Miss Logan made indeterminate gestures to the priest, then set off in pursuit of her employer. They traversed lush apricot orchards without comment; they ignored a shepherd holding out a bowl of milk; wordlessly they returned to the village, where Miss Fergusson, her calculated civility now restored to her, asked the elder if lodgings could be supplied to them without delay. The old man proposed his own house, the largest in Arghuri. Miss Fergusson thanked him, and offered in return a small parcel of sugar, which was gravely accepted.

That evening in their room a low table no bigger than a music stool was set with food. They were given
losb
, the thin local bread, cold mutton cut in pieces, hard-boiled eggs taken from their shells and halved, and the fruit of the arbutus. They were served no wine, either because such was the custom of the house, or because intelligence of their visit to the monastery had reached the elder. Instead, they drank sheep’s milk once more.

‘It is a blasphemy,’ said Miss Fergusson eventually. ‘A blasphemy. On Noah’s mountain. He lives like a farmer. He
invites women to stay with him. He ferments the grape of the Patriarch. It is a blasphemy.’

Miss Logan knew better than to reply, let alone plead the cause of the amiable Archimandrite. She recalled to herself that the circumstances of their visit had deprived them of an opportunity to examine the ancient willow tree sprung from a plank of Noah’s Ark.

‘We shall ascend the mountain,’ said Miss Fergusson.

‘But we do not know how to do such a thing.’

‘We shall ascend the mountain. Sin must be purged with water. The sin of the world was purged by the waters of the flood. It is a double blasphemy that the monk commits. We shall fill our bottles with snow from the holy mountain. The pure juice of Noah’s vine we came in search of has been rendered impure. We shall bring back purging water instead. That is the only way to salvage the journey.’

Miss Logan nodded, in startled acquiescence rather than agreement.

They set off from the village of Arghuri on the morning of June 20th, in the year of Our Lord 1840, accompanied only by their Kurdish guide. The elder regretfully explained the villagers’ belief that the mountain was sacred, and that no-one should venture upon it higher than the Monastery of Saint James. He himself shared these beliefs. He did not try to dissuade the party from their ascent, but he did insist on loaning Miss Fergusson a pistol. This she displayed at her belt, though she had neither the intention nor the resource to use it. Miss Logan carried a small bag of lemons, which had also been advised.