Katerina (23 page)

Whoever thought I would come back here? I had erased this first bosom from my memory like an animal, but a person’s memory is stronger than he is. What the will doesn’t do is done by necessity, and necessity ultimately becomes will. I’m not sorry I returned. Apparently, it was ordained.

I sit on the low bench in the chapel for an hour or two. The silence here is massive, perhaps because of the valley that surrounds the place. As a girl I used to run after cows and goats on these trails. How blind and marvelous my life
was then. I was like one of the animals I drove, strong like them and just as mute. Of those years no outward trace remains, just me, the years crammed into me, and my old age. Old age brings a person closer to himself and to the dead. The beloved dead bring us close to God.

In this valley I heard a voice from on high for the first time—actually, it was in the lowest slopes of this valley, where it opens up and flows into a broad plain. I remember the voice with great clarity. I was seven, and suddenly I heard a voice, not my mother’s or father’s, and the voice said to me, “Don’t be afraid, my daughter. You shall find the lost cow.” It was an assured voice, and so calm that it instantly removed the fear from my heart. I sat frozen and watched. The darkness grew thicker. There was no sound, and suddenly the cow emerged from the darkness and came up to me. Ever since then, when I hear the word
salvation
, I see that brown cow I had lost and who came back. That voice addressed me only once, never again. I never told anyone about it. I kept that secret hidden in my heart, and I rejoiced in it. In those years I was afraid of every shadow. In truth, I was prey to fear for many years and only free of it when I reached an advanced age. If I had prayed, prayer would have taught me not to be afraid. But my fate decreed otherwise, if I may say. The lesson came to me many years too late, immersed in many bitter experiences.

In my youth, I had no desire either for prayer or for the Holy Scriptures. The words of prayers that I intoned were not my own. I went to church because my mother forced me. At the age of twelve, I had visions of obscenities in the middle of prayers, which greatly darkened my spirit. Every
Sunday I used to pretend to be sick, and as much as my mother hit me, nothing did any good. I was as afraid of church as I was of the village doctor.

Nevertheless, thank God, I didn’t cut myself off from the wellsprings of faith. There were moments in my life when I forgot myself, when I sank into filth, when I lost the image of God, but even then I would fall to my knees and pray. Remember, God, those few moments, because my sins were many, and only Thou, with Thy great mercy, know the soul of Thy handmaiden.

Now, as the proverb says, the water has flowed back into the river, the circle is closed, and I have returned here. Too bad the dead are forbidden to speak. They’d have something to say, I’m sure. But the days are full and splendid, and I wander at great length. As long as the window is open and my eyes are awake, loneliness doesn’t grieve my soul.