Copyright 1986 David E. Cortesi
...so as I promised, I can now describe the Falling Temple from my own experience. The veiled ones that so intrigued you do indeed squat there, though hardly as silent or motionless as your schoolbook claimed they were.
"And there," whispered Fudar, my guide, after I had observed them, "is the catastrophe they suspend." At his gesture I looked up into the shadowy vaulting and saw the avalanche of stone that has hung, frozen, over the heads of generations of worshippers in this remote city.
"Come, we walk," Fudar said, and led me out on the polished floor. It is of pentagonal white stone tiles beautifully fitted. At the door all who enter are made to slip soft bags over their shoes and then to walk through a trough of diatomaceous earth, so that the steps of each one who walks there further improves the glaze of the floor.
In design, the temple is plain, even severe. Fluted columns of black stone define its sides. They rise into shadows where they spread into an admirable fan-vault. Between each pair of columns is a niche, a plain alcove of creamy plaster.
In each niche squats a figure made enigmatic by a waterfall of pleated black fabric. "The pleats of the robe reflect the columns," Fudar whispered. "There are thirty-seven on each side."
"They squat thus for many hours?"
"Indeed, miss, for five hours, one of the five equal watches of the day. Three hundred and sixty of the deserving poor are thus employed each day."
"They don't seem very attentive," I remarked, indicating one figure that was weaving a cat's cradle and another who was trimming its toenails.
"Ah, miss, attention is not required, only presence. Do you not know the story?"
I did, but groped too long for a polite way to say so.
"Come, you shall see and I shall tell." Fudar stretched out his left hand and took my right. "I shall draw you in a spiral to the center. Keep your eyes upward and your ears open to my voice."
He began to lead me, picking a way among the kneeling worshippers. I kept my eyes upward, at first only to play the game but then in real fascination, for as we spiralled inward I saw the falling stones in ever more detail, and in ever more detail I saw their impossible relationships to one another.
"Attend to me, oh faithful," Fudar began in a reedy voice, the artificial voice of the storyteller in the market, "and recall the day of our renewal of faith."
The lowest block is clearly the capstone of the original tower, a dodecahedron in black stone on a cylindrical base, inverted and falling like a comet into the temple. Next higher is a cluster of three that appear to be drum-sections of a fluted column, now broken apart, but falling in approximately their original formation, the middle one slightly ahead.
The gaps between the lowest stone and these, and between the three and the jumble that follows them, are distinct. I am quite sure they do not touch, and nothing connects them.
"Centuries ago our temple had a slender stone tower at the peak of its roof," Fudar said, "But although the building was strong, the people became weak in their faith, and so God began to send them evils by way of reminder, as one might send to one who leaves bills unpaid: first a polite note and then stronger notes."
Our spiral path kept bringing new stones into view. I identified a section of a stone balustrade and what might have been a spout for rain water.
"There were plagues of sniffles, then a small war. Then came plagues of skin sores, and a large war. Still there were fewer people in the temple each day."
At the center of the cloud of falling masonry are fragments of a brick curtain wall and parts of several stone window frames. It being near noon, shafts of sunlight filtered through the jumble. If there are wires, they are exceedingly fine and unreflective.
"At last God issued her final warning, that if ever her temple should be completely empty, it would be destroyed and the people with it.
"Next day an old man died before the altar at a moment when, shameful to relate, he was alone in the temple. God's threat, having been made, was latent in the the fabric of the universe, and at once it began to be carried out.
"The world groaned and trembled and the city began to break. Buildings fell in and crushed their occupants. Dust rose in billows while acqueducts broke open, so folk choked, slipped in mud, drowned in water. The stones of the temple began to chafe one upon another, and sand rained down.
"Outside, paving blocks turned on end and the fronts of buildings fell out on passers-by. In here, a piece of stone broke from the rim of the tower. It dropped to the floor and cracked the floor and itself. Look down, miss."
At my feet, guarded now by a low railing of gold, a spray of sharp fragments of black stone lay on a star of cracks.
"A few people were still devout, and one of these was a young woman, a vegetable seller, who had snatched a slow moment in her trade to pray. She stepped in the door of the temple just as the quake struck. She ran to the middle of the hall and arrived as the central tower began to crumble. Sliding to a stop on the glossy floor, she squatted as women do in the marketplace and said quietly, 'Here is this one, oh God, forget not her.' And the falling tower stopped in the air.
"Mortar dust fell around her, but her fluted black robe was unsoiled.
"The shaking ceased, and those outside saw that the central tower was gone and were amazed that the temple itself still stood. Expecting to find the interior heaped with stones, they entered to find instead only the one small woman, with the stones of the tower frozen like a waterfall above her.
"All said, praise be to God. Some said, how lucky that a holy woman should have been here to hold up these stones. But the woman said, oh no, anyone can do it, and now that you're all here, I must run, thanks; and she went out. Later she moved to another town.
"The ones who liked ceremonies said, let's design some robes and arrange a rota. But most said, and still say, fine, whatever, just let's don't leave the temple empty.
"And the stones still hang as you see."
Indeed they do. If they aren't held up by the patience of the God of that land, I don't know how they are held up.
I gave Fudar 45 prestaris, and another 150 to a masseusse at the hotel to work the kinks out of my neck. Tomorrow we are to witness the taming of bears.