13
The tracts, testimony, medical
examinations, bureaucracy, conditions, evaluations, impressions,
interrogations, positive or not, that form part of the process of
beatification or canonization are countless. Laws and rules exist,
rigorous in most cases, that have to be followed scrupulously by
the functionaries, emissaries, and prelates of the Holy See
responsible for the case. A miracle, just one, is enough to unchain
the machinery of verification. It can take years, sometimes
decades, to legalize the facts, depending on the candidate in
question and the interest of the Church in the matter. Much
interest results in a faster process; little interest in delays
capable of blackening and pulverizing the stones of the paved road.
Preferably the candidate for sainthood should have been dead for
more than five years in order to initiate the process of
beatification, except in certain cases of sanctity in attitude or
way of life. The venerable Mother Teresa of Calcutta is an example;
in life she was more holy than many saints after death. Abu Rashid,
the Muslim, seated on a narrow chair in a room on the seventh floor
of the King David Hotel, might also fit that description.
Through the window the foreigner watched the
ancient city, polemical but peaceful. Today was Friday, not yet
noon, but already loudspeakers were heard calling to prayer from
the tops of the minarets of the Al-Aqsa mosque. In former times it
would have been the muezzin who called the faithful for the hour of
prayer to Allah, facing the sacred city of Mecca.
“Tell me everything, Abu Rashid,” the man asked,
not taking his eyes off the church cupolas of the Christian and
Armenian quarters.
“What can I say that you don’t already know?” he
answered.
The foreigner remembered the previous day and the
fortunate visit to the Muslim’s house, as well as what happened
afterward.
“You brought back the dead and whoever was with you
in the Haj, after the monstrous flood that drowned thirty people,
around . . .” the foreigner repeated for the fourth time. “Where
are these living dead?” he asked sardonically.
“Around,” he said. “I don’t walk around counting
the life of each one.”
“That we’ll have to see . . . we’ll have to see,”
the other replied. “Can you imagine the work you’ve made for me?”
An almost imperceptible look of irritation crossed his face.
“You’re more than used to it. Someone has to do
it.” The voice remained calm, unaltered. Somewhat patient.
The foreigner left the window and sat down on the
edge of the bed. He watched Abu Rashid with a certain reverence he
wished to hide, which left him even more upset. He felt himself
blush. The color rose in his cheeks. He hated this happening,
especially when he was working on something important.
“When did you see . . . the Virgin?” Not without
some fear he evoked the name of the Mother of God.
“Every time she appears.”
The foreigner reacted as if it were blasphemy. He
felt as if Abu Rashid were insulting his own mother, which is true,
since the Virgin is the heavenly mother of every Christian.
“And when is that?” He decided to calm down. There
was nothing to gain in losing control.
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On what she has to say to me.”
“She’s the Mother of Christ, a Christian icon. Do
you believe in her?” Don’t lose patience, don’t lose
patience.
“I believe because I see her.”
“It could be no more than a hallucination, man of
God . . . of Allah,” he corrected himself.
“Allah is God,” the Muslim countered.
“But not mine,” the other replied decisively.
“Only one God exists. Mine could be yours.”
“Leave the dogma. You believe because you see
her.”
“Correct.”
“But she could be only a hallucination,” he
suggested.
Abu Rashid shook his head, denying it.
“No. Hallucinations are like mirages. They
deceive.”
“And she doesn’t deceive?”
“Never. Everything she tells me is always true.”
The word reflected the respect he had for the visions.
The foreigner got up again and paced from one side
of the spacious room to the other. He sighed deeply, his hands
behind his back.
“What has that vision told you?” he finally
asked.
“Oh, many things . . .” He smiled.
“For example,” the foreigner insisted.
“She spoke to me of the flood and the
drowning.”
“How many years ago was that?”
“Ten.”
“You’ve had this vision for ten years?”
“More,” the Muslim agreed, with the same smile on
his face.
“When did you have the first vision?” the foreigner
inquired, halfway between the bed and the door in his nervous
demand. “Do you remember?”
“As if it were today,” Abu Rashid announced with a
melancholy, nostalgic look, and remembered that day, his birthday,
the eleventh, when she appeared at his side on the Mount of Olives,
dressed in pure white, so brilliant that he had to shield his eyes
with his hand. He was running back to the city to the same house he
lived in today on Qadisieh Street to go with his father to pray at
Hara mesh-Sharif.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” she asked
him in a calming, melodious voice.
Contritely, respectfully, the boy explained his
duties to God and his family.
“God is always within you. It is enough to hear and
feel Him,” she replied like the song of a nightingale. The
melodious reply had made the boy stop to see her better.
“Who are you?”
“I have many names. Maria of all wishes and ideas.
The Virgin, anything you want to call me, including Lady.”
The boy found that very strange. A lady with any
name you want to call her?
“Okay, okay, okay,” the foreigner said, calling him
back impatiently to the present. “So, according to what you’re
saying, she’s appeared to you since you were eleven years old,” he
summarized.
“Correct.”
“Is there some specific day, some ritual you have
to perform so that she’ll appear?”
“No.”
“Can you calculate how many visions you’ve had?” He
sighed. He was losing patience.
“That’s easy.”
“It is?” At last there was hope.
“It is. All I have to do is count the days since
the vision on the Mount of Olives.”
“I don’t understand.” He returned to sit on the
edge of the bed, attentive.
“It’s simple. She’s appeared to me every day since
then.”
The foreigner stared at him incredulously. “Are you
saying the Virgin appears to you daily? That would be thousands of
times.”
Abu Rashid confirmed it with a nod of his
head.
“And this fact hasn’t converted you to
Christianity?”
“As you can see, no.”
“Why?”
“Because the Virgin has never asked me to.”
“And would you convert if she asked you?”
“She wouldn’t ask,” the old man affirmed with
certainty.
“But suppose she did?”
“She wouldn’t ask.”
“And what is it she tells you?” The foreigner
changed the subject.
“I’ve already answered that.”
“But I didn’t know you’d experienced thousands of
visions of Our Lady. This changes a lot of things. Okay, give me
some more examples.” His tone of interrogation and challenge was
obvious.
“She told me you would come.”
The foreigner gave Abu Rashid time to
continue.
“She told me everything that’s going to happen to
you and me.”
“And it’s turning out true?”
The ring of a telephone interrupted them. It was
the foreigner’s cell phone. It couldn’t be anything else, since Abu
Rashid hadn’t given in to the marvels of technology.
“Yes,” the foreigner answered, getting up and going
over to the window. He spoke in whispers so as not to be heard by
the Muslim, still not convinced of his visions. Anyway, it was
unlikely that Abu Rashid understood Italian.
The conversation lasted several minutes, always in
the same nasal tone. He couldn’t be too careful. The foreigner
tried to be as evasive as possible, letting unconnected words be
heard, like problem, prove, certainly, I’ll do what I can .
. . Suddenly he looked back at the chair where Abu Rashid was
sitting and couldn’t help thinking that he understood, or rather
that nothing was news to him. He concentrated on the words of the
person he was speaking with, setting aside the ideas distracting
him. He couldn’t let himself be influenced by words. Only facts
counted. The call ended with a click on the other end. He would
never dare to hang up first.
“Did you get your instructions?” Abu Rashid asked
suddenly.
“It was a private conversation,” the foreigner
protested.
“About me,” he asserted.
An ironic smile crossed the foreigner’s lips. “I
didn’t know you knew Italian.”
“I don’t, but I’ve known the content of that
conversation longer than you have to live,” he said
powerfully.
The attitude in those words struck the foreigner.
Something was going on here. “Well, do you know what’s going to
happen next?”
“We’re going to take a trip,” he continued with a
serious expression.
“What else has she told you?” He tried to change
the subject, lightly, ignoring the old man’s hitting the
mark.
“That neither she nor her Son worry about communism
or any other political conviction. They never divide the world
between good and evil people. Everything bad in the world is
created only by us, by our free, spontaneous will. So that when one
prays to God to protect us, one really ought to pray to man to
defend him from himself.”
The foreigner got up and went over to Abu Rashid,
looking down at him from his almost six feet of height.
“Careful what you say,” he warned.
“I’m not afraid.”
“I see that nothing is news to you.”
“Well, no.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“I know what they did with the body of the Pole,”
Abu Rashid said.
Confused, but trying not to show it, the foreigner
put the gag that hung from the neck of the Muslim back in his mouth
and made sure that the ropes tying his body to the chair were tight
to prevent him from escaping.