THE PROJECTS
About twenty voices sang the hymn to Saint Methodius with great sadness. A gesture from the abbot, and the monks fell silent.
“Alexéi,” he ordered the novice who had brought the vodka to help them endure the cold of the scriptorium, “tell us one of your stories.”
And Alexei recounted the adventures of the knight who mistook windmills for giants. They continued painting. One applied gold leaf to the panel. The master outlined the face of Our Lady. The younger ones ground the pigments in a mortar.
As he spoke, Alexei filled the clay cups with the brandy from Jerez that an Italian merchant had brought to Odessa.
It was, he said, the liquor with which the Castilian nobleman healed his wounds—those of life, those of death, those of love. Why tell you that the Bolsheviks had already taken the port?
A sweet light emanated from the icons.
Javier Izcue Argandoña
