The scene is right out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. No formal entry way. Instead, a hole in the ground near the grey
stone walls shows steep, narrow steps cut roughly into the bedrock. Steps that grudgingly allowed entry into the
burial vaults under the old church. The
low doorway forces visitors to stoop to enter.
Inside everything is covered in ancient dust and cobwebs. Dim light from low wattage bulbs barely gives
enough light for the visitors to see into the individual crypts where wooden
coffins are haphazardly stacked. The
lids to several are broken. Slightly
hunched over, the caretaker/guide speaks in a high-pitched voice that holds a
hint of a malevolent giggle. He gleefully points out the coffin of the nun,
the thief whose feet had been cut off, the brothers who were hung, drawn and
quartered.
At the end of the hallway, he waits
in the gloom for today’s visitors: two
couples—one young, the other much older.
He rubs his hands together as he tells the story of the final coffin and
its occupant. A knight. A crusader.
His legs broken and crossed to form a crude crucifix. His right arm extending a bit above the level
of the open casket.
The visitors peer into the gloom. In the dim light, they see the open casket
covered with dust and old dirt. The
mummified remains are a darker shade of grey/brown. If the two men visitors are unnerved, they
show no sign. Both of the women,
especially the young one, look nervous and uncomfortable.
The guide, looking and sounding like
Dracula’s slave who ate flies and bugs, makes an offer to the visitors, his
voice tinny with glee and challenge:
“Would you care to shake hands with the mummy?” With a barely suppressed squeal, the young woman brushes past the older couple and almost runs to the stairway leading out into the gathering dusk. The young man follows her almost as abruptly.
The older couple is left alone with the centuries-old mummies and the guide who still waits expectantly for an answer to his question.
A novel?
No. A movie? No. Just us.
Although
Richard and I (the older couple) had found St. Michan’s Church in Dublin after
the last tour of the day had started, the ticket seller assured us that we
could join the tour at the half-way point, seeing the last half with the larger
group, and then the guide would take us and another couple through what would
normally be the first part of the tour. The guide was delightful. He had obviously studied the role of Stoker’s Enfield, especially as played by Dwight Frye in the black and white movie version with Bela Lugosi. What could have been either a boring or more-than-slightly disgusting look at dirty coffins in a dry, airless basement became a dip into the past. This was aided by the knowledge that Bram Stoker actually visited the vaults before he wrote Dracula. At least, Stoker’s visit is one of the many legends surrounding the church, the vaults, and the mummies. Legends a realist might question.
But on this day, Richard and I aren’t being realists. As the young couple fled the crypt, the guide continued, “Shaking hands with the crusader was said to bring good luck.”
“Well,” Richard said. “Let me in there."
The guide opened the iron gate and Richard went inside, edging his way between the wall and the casket. He took the mummy’s fingers in his right hand, touching it but not shaking it. Then he carefully made his way back to me.
My turn. I heaved an inward sigh. Then I followed Richard’s pattern. When I touched the fingers, they felt leathery, like old modeling clay.
“Now you will both be lucky,” the guide told us.
The next
day, on our flight from Dublin to Faro, Portugal, Richard looked out the
airplane window just in time to see another plane at the same level as ours but
going in the opposite direction, close enough for him to read the logo and
could have read, given more calm, the numbers on the tail. Our plane veered away and onto another flight
pattern. Airlines call this “a near
miss.” We call it “luck of the mummy.”
