"Hatzinikolaou, Leonidas - The Holy Pledge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hatzinikolaou Leonidas)

on the wall. Light flooded the room. St. Catherine's monastery in the
Sinai did not lack electricity, but Father Gregorios remained attached
to the old tradition, preferring a candle or an oil-lamp to fluorescent
lighting. His library presented the only exception to the rule.
He glanced toward the low sturdy table near his desk, where his
latest acquisition perched, the library's new color copier. Its mere
sight made his heart sing. He put on his glasses and hunched over
the machine to check the counter. Satisfied that it had not been used
since his last visit, he pressed the Power button and waited for the
LED screen to light up, delighting in the mystery of this technolog-
ical marvel at the heart of the Sinai desert.
A few moments later the copier started with a soft whirr.
Nodding to himself, the old monk hurried across the room and
opened a tall steel cabinet where the 1975 manuscript collection was
kept.
Mentally reviewing the last twenty-four hours, as he went about
his task, Father Gregorios decided that this had been one of those
days of strange synchronicity, when all kinds of things happen at the
same time, demanding continuous mechanical action. After the first
hour or so in such a non-day, time loses its meaning and sweetness
as it degrades into a cheap fuel, spent with the sole purpose of
keeping the human engine running.
As usual, his day had begun at dawn with the liturgy of Orthros.
Halfway through, however, he was forced to leave the chapel when
a very upset Bedouin from the nearby Ayn Kin wadi, his old friend
Hussein Abdel Men'im, had arrived asking for him.
Hussein was immensely relieved to see Father Gregorios.
Speaking fast in his clipping Arabic dialect, he explained to his
Christian friend that his seventeen year old firstborn Hassan had
stolen a Land Rover from the parking lot at the Fayrouz Hilton
hotel, and hidden it somewhere into the desert. Now he threatened
to drive it to Cairo just to keep his pre-arranged tryst with the
teenage daughter of an American diplomat he'd met at the hotel.
Completely at a loss on how to handle this non-traditional situa-
tion, Hussein had run to St. Catherine's seeking help and advice
from Father Gregorios.
The old monk had mustered his persuasive powers, and after a
couple of negotiating rounds with young Hassan he extracted from
him the promise that he'd immediately return the jeep to its rightful
owner and then come back to stay for a few days at the monastery
under his personal supervision.
Father Gregorios's quid-pro-quo to Hassan had been his offer to
assist him in writing a letter to the American girl, in which the
young Bedouin would confess his feelings for her, along with his
reasons for not showing up at their rendezvous.
Back at the monastery, Father Gregorios was informed that the
truck with the monthly supplies had arrived two days earlier
than expected. He had to supervise the unloading and transfer of the
supplies to their proper storage rooms, while a mixed group of
tourists kept pestering him for anecdotal information about the