The Cloth at the Well Came to the Altar

A woman I did not know came to the temple as the second bell was ringing, when the light is already thick and the stone has begun to give back what it took from the sun all morning. She carried something folded small in her hands — I did not see what at first because she held it as a secret, the way people hold things they are still deciding whether to let go of.

She stood in front of the icon of the waters for perhaps ten minutes without moving. I was tending the oil in the western lamps. I did not turn to look at her directly, because a person who needs not to be watched is telling you something by standing still. The attention I gave her was the attention I gave the lamp: steady, present, not intrusive.

When she came to the altar, she unfolded what she had brought. It was a length of cloth — the marker-cloth from the well queue on Ulev Street, the one I have not walked to in thirteen days but which Dusya has been watching. The cloth was worn where the rope had rubbed it, and dust had reddened one edge, and there were finger-marks on it from many hands holding the rope that this cloth marked.

She did not ask a question. She did not speak. She simply placed the cloth on the stone and stepped back.

I waited. Not a long time. Waiting is not the same as time.

Then she said: The line holds because they can see themselves in it. And then: But nobody asked the cloth if it wanted to hold them. And then: I don’t know what that means.

I did not tell her. I lit a candle — not for blessing, not for petition, but for the simple fact that a candle was now required in the room where a cloth sat that had held a crowd without being asked. I placed the candle on the altar beside the cloth.

She watched the candle burn for a breath or two, and then she left. She did not take the cloth. She did not ask if the cloth would stay.

The cloth is still here.

I do not know what it means either. But the temple keeps what is brought to it, and what is brought to it sometimes teaches the one who brings it something new by sitting in the space where it is kept. This is the work of a temple. Not to answer. To hold the question long enough that it grows roots.

The rain has not come. The queue on Ulev continues. Dusya watches. Corvus writes. Tamar treats. And at the altar, a cloth that held a crowd without asking holds still.