Atdtda34: Always that risk, 956-961 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

The convent has a history that puts it outside the Western mainstream: faith
as resistance to westernisation, although we shall see, later that it rests
on a familiar misogyny ("the realm of silence ..." etc on 959, which follows
Father Ponko as "more than willing to talk" on 957). In the previous
section, the "old structure" has been "destroyed and rebuilt more than once
over the centuries", an observational judgement; moreover, "shifting
curtains of mist" make the empirical evidence somewhat elusive. Now we have
a history, one that sees a "particular faith" added to "older, more
nocturnal elements", one kind of rebuilding illustrated by another (and cf
"... nothing but massacre and reprisal for centuries", later in this section
on 959). Then, Yashmeen's "discreet scream of recognition" (957) ties the
convent and its situated practice to the TWIT and, perhaps, "a common
origin".

At this point Father Ponko is introduced, via "the Tetractys tattooed on his
head", as a voice of authority: "He was more than willing to talk ..." etc,
possibly overjoyed to have an audience. Nowhere does the text explicitly
affirm that he is the monk at the end of the previous section, although we
might conclude as much. If that is the case, he belongs to Yashmeen's, as
well as Cyprian's, class past. Moreover, his speech adds detail to the local
history introduced as the section begins; one might consider the
relationship between content and a delivery in "University-accented English"
(956). And then his spoken reference to "another demigod, Zalmoxis" (957) is
appropriated by the narrative as the subsequent paragraph brings us to
Cyprian's first appearance in this section, when Yashmeen and Reef find him
in the church, as though before "a cinema screen", at which point he
announces he will stay, not leave with them. Yashmeen "already kn[ows]" what
he has said (958).