Читать книгу Tales of Yusuf Tadros - Adel Esmat - Страница 6

Yusuf Tadrus says:

Yesterday I dreamed of the resurrection rite.

The light was dim, coming from candles set in niches along the length of the wall. The silence was heavy, save for the faint sound of chants. There were about five of us. We were walking in a long line and wearing flowing gallabiyas, like the light ones farmers wear, made of coarse cotton. I was terrified. All I could think was: How had I gotten here and who brought me and there must be some mistake.

We entered a spacious, square room with no furnishings but a linen rug spread out on the floor. The abbot stood next to a small pulpit. We stood in front of him in a row, like in a morning roll call. He gestured for us to lie down on the rug. We obeyed as if hypnotized.

I was still baffled, thinking about how I’d gotten there. I knew it was too late and there was no going back. The sound of the chants grew louder and my thoughts deserted me. Only the fear remained. It was too late to turn back. I had to submit to my fate. Maybe my life here would be better.

We lay down, our backs to the ground and faces to the ceiling. I saw only darkness. I felt a sheet thrown over us, covering us from head to toe. I smelled the scent of linen and felt its roughness on my face. The chants grew louder. Funeral rites were performed, every step of them. I submitted to them. Then the voices gradually grew distant and a silence fell, so heavy you were afraid to breathe. Then the breath vanished and I no longer felt anything.

I don’t know how long I stayed in the darkness of the veil. There was no time there. Silence and darkness. The veil lifted in a blur. The light shone from two candles on a high shelf. I struggled to orient myself, and then I heard prayer chants, as if the sun were shining. The flame of the two candles was fixed in place, as if there were no air here.

We stood in a line again, and the abbot descended two stairs holding scissors. After pronouncing each of our names, he left a mark on our heads with the scissors. When he approached me, his face was stony, lifeless, except for an overwhelming radiance in his eyes. He impressed the mark on my head and pronounced my name: Girgis. We began walking in the same line into a dark corridor, met with candles flickering in niches in the far distance. I couldn’t look behind me. When I tried to remember my first name, I couldn’t. I tried to recall anything about my former life and found only emptiness, as if everything I’d lived before had been completely erased.