This book is set in a small village in Syria, north of Damascus, whose inhabitants, Christian and Muslim alike, are among the last speakers of the language believed to be Christ's own, and call themselves Aramaean. While war and sectarian clashes rage around it, Maaloula maintains a peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims, each ensuring the ancient bond is not broken, in a country watched over by the political police. Beyond the persistence of a language, across three journeys the authors question this effort by both communities in a village free of visible conflict, overlooked by a strange resin-cast Virgin, questioning their own representations too, from spring to winter, whether nothing happens or the village erupts in festival, drifting toward fiction and a use of colour.