RAIN APOCRYPHA

1. The mountain did not go to the prophet: He himself came to the Rhodopes, caressed the stones, and fell asleep in their arms. When he awoke, the Gypsy maiden was leaning over him, reading quietly the lines on his palms. The prophet looked at her.He didn’t even lift a hand to check on his ribs, for he was sure that she was a part of him. And then I understood the saying about Mohammed and the mountain: The mountain always wanted to come, but first he had to tear it away from his eyes, in order to see it and to understand that he was a part of it.

2. They say that her father was a stonecutter. When God created the Rhodope mountains, He sent him to carve hands for all the stones. I havebeen gathering them since I was a child. I roamed the cemeteries believing that if someone took the tombstones, the tombs will simply disappear. And soon all cemeteries around disappeared.

3. And when the mountain was covered with hands, along came the prophet. He lifted his hands and asked the stonecutter’s daughter to sing a Rhodope song for him.That was how we held our prayers for rain. The mountain lifted its hands towards the advancing clouds and waved farewell. And my daughter was afraid that the clouds would fall victim to our prayers for rain. She did not reproach me, but whispered quietly the prayer for the dead, which I used to say in my childhood, over the puddles left after a heavy rain.

4. All clouds die. But the ones that are gathering above have followed our song here of their own free will. And if it rains after a while, they’ll simply give us back what they have gathered from the song on their way here. Neither the clouds, nor the prayer are the cause of the rain; rather, it is caused by the will to help us. The prophet stopped. He couldn’t recall why they had held the prayer. And it was not the first time, either. He had been gathering stones throughout his childhood. I learned from them how to read and write.They taught me, that if death came, you weren’t there. I learned to be a stone. (If they take me, will the tomb disappear too.) But I could never recall why I gathered stones: I used to gather them, and I continue gathering them still.

5. A stranger asked me how to get to the Rhodopes. I didn’t know where he was going, but I felt it.He was a fellow traveler. I felt that I could not but help him. The stranger told me that he had been looking for the mountains all his life. I didn’t know whether this was long or short, but I could see the sores on his feet and the gray in his hair.I bent down and took the last tombstone off my back. (That is how they took down the crucified one. He grew ripe on the cross.And in my dreams I saw human multitudes crucified on needles’ eyes. He plucked me off, so that I would not fall. The prophet does fall far from the cross. And then he, too, was taken down.) 

I turned to the piles of stones gathered over the years and said: I know each and every stone of the Rhodopes.But I did not know the mountain.So I turned away and tore it from my eyes. But that fruit had fallen behind me, and I didn’t turn back to see it. I was on my way. In search of a thing I had been looking for all my life. I didn’t know whether that was long or short, but the road took me to the Rhodopes. No, the traveler wasn’t a stranger. And I knew I should not turn round, for I wouldn’t recognize myself. One of the stones was missing.

6. The stonecutter couldn’t believe his hands, for every thing he touched turned into a tombstone. He was blind.

I was so happy that I wanted to kiss the boy’s hands. He stretched his arm out to him, but then he realized that he would turn the boy to stone too. Then he started to think: Maybe the stones have hands too, but no one sees them. He sat down, took out his stone-cutter’s burin--the only thing he possessed--and set out to help people with weak eyesight. So I taught the stones how to pray: “In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful”. And the mountain was covered with kissed hands.

7. The rain is one for clouds and for people--said the Gypsy and sent his daughter.

8. She loved reading palms. She couldn’t wait for the stonecutter to finish working on a stone, and then her long dark fingers ran over the curved lines inscribed upon it.

From her the stones learned what had transpired, and what was their past. And with each passing day their hands grew warmer and warmer at the touch of the long dark fingers. The lines twitched, and the veins that even the stonecutter hadn’t noticed grew deeper and deeper into the carved stone.Sometimes she was so frightened by what she read upon their palms that she beseeched the stonecutter to change or erase some of the lines.

9. The prophet cannot foretell the future. He possesses pure knowledge and her long dark fingers. When the fingers touched the stonecutter, they divined that he had a daughter and he knew he was a part of her.They knew about the missing stone.

10. I can’t explain why or how, but the lines on his palms are moving. I read them. I see how they throw stones at the messenger. I see how he gathers the stones and builds a temple.How he brings into it the ones who want to repent for the murder. The prophet enters. The temple reaches out for his hands: to ask forgiveness. In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful. The hands are pointing at the walls: Not me, it was them that you stoned. The walls are covered with forgiveness and kissed hands. The prayer has never been interrupted. The prophet is late for the meeting with his next murderers. Will they repent. The prophet cannot foretell the future. He possesses pure knowledge and her long dark fingers. Will they repent if I tell her… I looked at her.

11. Six days on end it rained without stopping. The rain was streaming down the veins. The stonecutter who regained his sight with the first drops of rain looked at his daughter. The rain is one for clouds and for people.

12. When the rain stopped, the Rhodopes were gone. The stones never went to the mountain. They only gather it. They tear it away from themselves to call themselves people of the mountain. The people of the mountain are the true roots of the mountain. They don’t have to look for their roots in it. I know where the roots are. And so do they. We all go to the missing stone.

Translation from Bulgarian: Michael Beard with Aziz Tash,and with Marta Simidchieva