The Early Christian Architecture of Syria

 *

The Early Christian Architecture of Syria

A story I heard at a party

*

I met a man at a party. He was drunk. He told me a story. It was about his mother-in-law. Perhaps he was pulling my leg?

 He was away on a prolonged research project in Syria, collecting material for a book on the Romanesque churches there. His mother-in-law was lonely so his wife had invited her to stay at their house in Highbury.

Did she mention this to her husband?

Yes, she told him on the phone.

He was staying at The Baron Hotel in Aleppo when she called. The Baron Hotel was a big lump of white stucco from the days when Syria was a French protectorate. There was still a chintz flavour to the drawing room, and you could get a sort of Gin and Tonic there, but besides that, the hotel had fallen into disrepair and, like everything else in Syria, the phones only worked sometimes, so her call took him by surprise.

He told his wife that it was not a bad idea for his mother-in-law to come to stay as his wife was also susceptible to loneliness, and the mother-in-law would go after a couple of weeks before he had even returned. He did not like his mother-in-law and in order to mask this acted with more consideration and kindness towards her than he would if she had appealed to him.

However, when he returned from Damascus, she was still there. The man felt that he had shown his mother-in-law enough consideration and kindness.

The man asked his wife to send her mother back home to Wiltshire, but his wife took pity on her mother and continually procrastinated. She would prepare the sentences she was to say to her mother, repeating them in her head, but the moment was never quite right: her mind became giddy with a confusion of guilt and pity and love.

This situation lasted for several weeks. The man felt uncomfortable in his own house. It was a large house and there was a library where he would hide, burying himself in his research on early Christian Architecture of Asia Minor.

One day he received a phone call. It was an old friend from his student days at Durham.

"Hello Thomas," said the caller.

"Well, Hello! Is that you, Howard?"

They met for drink at a pub off the Angel and later were joined by a couple of others from their Durham days and went off to have a curry together. They got a bit drunk on more beer and brandies at the curry house. They then caught last orders at a pub on Upper Street and, quite toasted, got a taxi down to a little club off Greek Street, where they had some shots of vodka and more beer and became extremely drunk, before bundling into cabs to reach their homes.

Thomas had problems finding his way up the path to his house. He had difficulty putting his key in the lock, and he very nearly tripped on the stoop. But finally he stumbled in all right.

He bent down to pick up Saba the cat that came up to him in the hall, burying his drunken face in its fur. Saba tolerated that for a minute then began gently struggling. He put her down.

He heard the hollow tick of the grandfather clock. He looked at the white porcelain face. : four am.

Then he encountered his mother-in-law in the hall, in her dressing gown, making her way from the living room upstairs. What was she up to?

She looked at him. She wasn`t tall. She shook a little as she walked.

"What are you doing?" he said. The words came out much louder than he expected.

The next part wasn't clear. He supposed that he might have pushed her, then she might have fallen and cracked her head on the baluster.

He went to sleep on the chaise longue in the library.

Jenny found her mother in the morning and was quite upset. Thomas woke on the chaise longue with a raging hangover and a horrible thirst. His tongue was furry and he tasted stale cigarettes in his mouth. He shook his head. He saw a packet of Marlboro on the floor and a single broken cigarette sticking out of it.

The police did not come and the coroner was not suspicious. Thomas was happier as he had not liked having to make small talk with his mother-on-law. The only part he disliked was having to feel sorrowful at the funeral. He drank quite heavily before going to the church but it seemed to him that the relatives believed this was because he was grieving. Jenny was sad for a while but Thomas was supportive and she got over it after six weeks though she was occasionally wistful for months after that.

How did the book on Syria`s Early Christian Architecture go?

Yes, it went well. It was well reviewed in both specialist journals. It was the first in a series of guides. He was now working on "The Early Christian Architecture in Armenia."

Then he spoke about Armenia and the tragic history of its people.

*

From 2007

Illustration: acrylic on hardboard, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

*

Read to the American Writer's Union, New York, 25 March, 2021

*