Year Zero by Jeff Long Page B

sacrilegious,” he said.
    The big fisherman pushed the tough away. “Leave him alone. He’s simple,” he said.
    “Then shut him up. He’ll drive the tourists away.”
    “She is coming,” said Spyros. He cast fearful glances up the street. Others looked and saw nothing.
    Someone threw a small stone at him as if driving away a dog. Another stone followed. People clucked or hissed or spit.
    “She comes from heaven,” said the young man.
    “Go back to your goats, Spyros.”
    “I never trusted his family,” a man said. “Look at those blue eyes. He comes from the Turks.”
    Only slowly did they become aware of her. She appeared from the lane’s deep shadows and descended into view. Perhaps she had followed the simpleton downhill. Perhaps she was drawn by the church bells. Maybe she had simply obeyed gravity on her trek to the sea.
    “Dear Christ in Heaven,” someone whispered.
    She moved on two legs, but did not look human. Naked as a ghost, she seemed made of glass. From a distance, as they squinted into the shadows, her body seemed to flicker in and out of reality. She drew nearer, but haltingly, with the pace of a sleepwalker.
    As she passed, Spyros put his hands to his head and cowered against the wall. The fisherman stared in disbelief, then took off his cap uncertainly. He crossed himself. She swayed past them without a glance.
    “What is this?” someone murmured. The square opened to her. The crowd pressed back against the buildings. Who could she be? Where did she come from?
    She entered the sunlight and became even more fantastic. For her skin was nearly transparent. Her veins showed clearly. Backlit by the sun, her organs were a silhouetted mass. One could see the limned bones.
    And yet she was not a gruesome sight. Quite the opposite. Despite her condition, the woman’s beauty was evident. Her hair was long. Except for the transparent roots, it was black and tangled with flowers and vegetation. Her figure was voluptuous, with luminous breasts and flared hips.
    She came to a halt. Some noticed her lower legs and feet. The skin was torn. Shepherds’ dogs had bitten her. Thorns stuck from the edges of her soles. Even if this transfigured being had descended from the heavens, it was clear she had also walked a long distance.
    It might have been the smell of the sea which stopped her, or the warmth of the sun or the flatness of the square, the fact that she was no longer being pulled downhill. Or it could have been the sight of the church. No one knew why she stopped in their midst. She had a slight cough.
    “What is your name?” a man called out.
    Nothing in her radiant face conveyed knowledge. She seemed not to register the question. Her peacefulness was startling.
    “Why have you come here?” someone asked.
    Her mouth opened, but no language came out, only a sound like the beginning of a song. Her innocence stilled them. They listened to her single note of sound. It went on and on.
    She raised her arms out to the sides. Something wondrous happened. Wings of color flashed and disappeared as her hands lifted up. Her flesh had become a prism. She faced the sun, and her entire body threw a penumbra of rainbow.
    “What kind of creature is this?” someone asked.
    Someone might have recognized her, even in her condition, if she were a daughter of this island. As it was, no one in this town had ever met Medea, the fifth wife of Nikos Engatromenos. She was a stranger to them regardless of her flesh.
    An old woman in black dared to go forward. Clutching her rosary, she reached out and touched the angel. The strange creature lifted her head and turned blindly in the direction of the old woman. A murmur rifled through the crowd.
    The old woman brought her face closer and made her judgement. She knelt. “Evloyite,” she said. Normally it was a greeting reserved only for monks. She said it again. Bless me. Rainbows danced upon the old woman’s black dress.
    Devotion overtook the crowd. It was spontaneous.