Gregory

by Panos Ioannides

  She lifted the blanket. Her last-born was smiling at her. He woke up and stirred to receive her lips on the cheeks that were ready to split and drip out their life…

  She hugged him close to her and took another step. Then she heard footsteps and the barking of the dog. It was him, it was Filippo! He suspected or the monk had spoken to him and he was hurrying to take her back, to send her to Venice by the galley which had brought Livio de Nores and the forty gowns, to Venice where an abbot had found the herb that cured leprosy…

  The shadow emerged first from the forest. It was the servant girl, Kypriani. Then, the dog.

  “Go away, leave…”

  “I know, my lady. Fra-Jacomo told me…”

  “Your master, have you told him?”

  “No, my lady, no one knows… I swear. Come with me, my lady. Don’t jump. You mustn’t. God is great. The Virgin will do something for our child…”

  “Go, go away. You’re free…”

  “Let’s go to the Castle, my lady. I know a peasant who can cure him…”

  “Here, in this cell, the King of England imprisoned Comnenos. In your cell. He slept here, under your window. In my cell, Henry locked up his brother, d’ Ibelin. The new Garrison Commander is the latter’s grandson… Did you see your lord when you went down last night?”

  “No, my lady, I did not see him.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “He is well.”

  “Does he ask?… Does he know where we are?”

  “I don’t know, my lady.”

  “You’re lying, bitch. You’ll pay for it… One day I’ll lock you up with him and leave you… The Proveditor used to say that Echive Montpeliar, d’ Ibelin’s wife, whom they were hunting, disguised herself as a monk and sought sanctuary up here. She was saved by hiding in this cell… No one knows the castle better… and loves it… Since it was abandoned by the King’s order, Filippo used to bring me often… Tell me…”

  “They say he is well… He is living in the garrison headquarters… He left two servant girls to look after him…”

  “The children?”

  “He sent them to Venice on the galley!”

  “The Queen received us here! She was wearing purple, all diamonds. In the course of one night she changed her dress three times. She loved Buffavento; she wanted to be worthy of its beauty…. The healer?”

  “Not yet. But I’ve sent him a message.”

  “Does he really know about herbs?”

  “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. There was this village girl from Karmi. She was working at Signor Zagravi’s, on Santo Larco, when she caught the disease… The girl saw the signs on him and tried to run away. They caught her and took her to him. He scratched her breast with a knife, kissed it and rubbed it over his pus until he gave her the disease. Then they sent her away. The old man found her and rubbed her body with his herbs. And she was cured…”

  “When will he come?”

  “Soon, my lady. Today or tomorrow.”

  “Why do you suckle the child?”

  “I won’t get it, my lady. I have no scratches.”

  “Where are you from? Can you see your village from here?”

  “I don’t know. My family were killed when I was only…”

  “How were they killed?”

  “I don’t know, my lady.”

  “You don’t know anything. What do you know? You’re as stupid as… My body is full of it, do you know that? On my arm here, on my belly… You’ll be full too, very soon. The dog has got it! Have you seen? Do you know this? But what do you care? You can’t get it. First wait till your flesh stinks and then you’ll care. Then you’ll go and look for the old man. Now, you don’t care a damn. You look first to see if you’ve got a scratch and if you haven’t you act like a saint…”

  “The old man is dead, my lady. Years ago. No one knows his remedy…”

  At dawn, cannon fire and disaster woke them. Flames were devouring Kyrenia and the harbour was enveloped in smoke. Out at sea ships and galleys were sinking.

  She sent the servant girl to find out. All her concern, for months now, had been concentrated down there, on the Proveditor’s town, on the harbour that received and brought his messages and letters to doctors and astrologers. He was taking a long time to find the remedy, that’s why he didn’t come, she knew how tender-hearted he always was with her, how good… To the whole world he was unsmiling. Even to the Venetians… Only with her… One day he would appear with the foreigner, with some old man, face and hands covered with skin like cactus, that he had cured himself…

  Midday passed, it grew dark and the battle subsided, but the servant girl did not return. She dragged herself to d’ Ibelin’s window and set herself to watch the path. She stayed there for a long time. Night fell over the sea. Only the fire could be seen, that kept changing shape and was so bright, had a skin so smooth and so clean that no disease could touch it, a skin that healed every disease…

  Late at night the dog returned. It had been missing for days. It came and stood next to her. She left the window and her body fell hard onto the bed. She was stiff and the cold penetrated through the scars of the disease right to her bones. The tears that welled up were like decayed teeth…

  She stretched out her hand, took the dog and flung it between her and the child, whom the disease had already deformed into a ball of soggy flesh. She rubbed the dog against the child and then against herself, to warm them up.

  Then she suddenly noticed that, under the hair, the skin here and there was no longer oozing. She lit the lamp. The animal’s wounds had closed or were closing. And over them, like a membrane, the new skin was taut… In desperation, she hugged the dog more tenderly than she had ever hugged her children or her husband, and staying awake all night, began to rub it on their wounds.

  When Kypriani returned, aged, she looked in vain for her mistress. D’ Ibelin’s cell was empty and the bedclothes cold.

  She put away the meat she had stolen from the bag of a slaughtered Venetian and ran to the rock… She wasn’t there. She crawled on her knees to the edge and looked down. No sign anywhere, no clothing, no pus.

  She tied the meat in her apron and set off for the town. The Turks had already begun to bring their families and a servant was always welcome, a servant whom no one knew had worked for a leper or that the first spots had begun to redden on her breasts… Until they found out she had time… The milk in her breast was fire… It was pus… It was…

  All those who could have betrayed her and sent her far away from people and children were no longer alive… Not her mistress, nor Fra-Jacomo, whom she had found impaled in the Square, nor Signor Giorgio whose carcase, naked, without the genitals that had deflowered her, was swinging from an olive tree outside the walls. Not Filippo de Molino, who had escaped with some of the officers from the castle and was sailing away. He was unharmed and fighting when he left the island and only she, the stupid servant, was racking her brains to find some lie to tell her mistress: that her master died with her name on his lips, had been taken prisoner and was being taken to the seraglio, or that he had entrusted his property to a wise muzzein healer and he’s bringing it any moment…

  Before the sun had set she was wet nurse at the lodgings of Musellim Hakki Ibn Affan.

  Before the sun had set, on the other side of the mountain, naked, with her thin, blemished body, with the child shivering in her arms, completely immersed in the water, Maria de Molino was bathing in the spring that had cured the dog.

  Nearby, barking at the flies and still wet, the faithful animal was basking in the sun…

  From the short story collection

  Chronaka, I.M. Publications, Nicosia 1972

  Translated by Christine Georghiades

  The Uniforms

  For the fourth time there came a thunderous knocking on the door. Father and daughter looked at each other. She went to the window. The tramping in the street and the shouts intensified. So did the blows on the door. The man outs
ide was trying to force it open; he despaired; he crept to the window, like the previous three. She saw his fingers hook round the faded bars; he pulled at them savagely but in vain. Without abandoning his efforts, he pressed his forehead against the window; just a hair’s breadth separated them; he was soaked in sweat, his chest was heaving from running; as they stared at each other, she read the supplication in his eyes.

  “They’re going to kill me… Please, help!”

  The girl stepped back. The old man took her place at the window.

  “Be off, swine!” he shouted to the stranger. “Now dog asking for help… Your turn pay now…”

  The tramping in the street stopped. And the shouting. “Halt!” and everything fell silent. The old man stepped back, waiting. Outside the stranger was begging “Don’t, no… no… I’m unarmed…”

  The shot they were expecting; the daughter hid in her father’s arms; the youthful figure at the window vanished. Another took its place, that of the Turkish Platoon Commander, the same one they had already seen four times that afternoon.

  “That’s the fourth one finished off…” His voice was cold and professional. “There’s one more. He must be hiding somewhere around here.”

  As soon as they moved away the old man angrily unwound her arms from off him. Her left arm fell abruptly, to clasp her belly; the other she clamped across her mouth to stop the vomit.

  “I’m hungry,” the old man said. “I want my food. What’s the matter with you? We’ve been waiting twenty years for this blessed day! Today of all days, when Allah has shown mercy on us, you feel pity? This soldier outside is not a soldier. Take it from me. He is Allah himself! The one who’s dashing about delivering blows and dealing out punishment is the Prophet! He has put on a uniform and come to save the faithful, to cleanse Kyrenia of the curs…”

  He looked at the photograph on the wall, framed by the red flag.

  “To punish the killer of my son,” he added and angrily shut himself in his room.

  A new sound made her jump. Surely not… She must be imagining things… No, no… a knock at the door… again… for the fifth time today. Yes, there it was again, more insistently now. She hesitated a moment, then went on tiptoe and leant her back against the wood. “Move away from there,” her father had said the second time. “If they shoot him, they’ll get you too…” As soon as he had said it she’d pulled back. But not now.

  “Who is it?” she asked faintly, not wanting the old man to hear.

  “Please…” the man outside began, but stopped abruptly. Then his voice came like a sob:

  “Andreas!”

  She heard him run towards the dead man, call him “brother”…

  She unlocked the door, opened it slightly, just enough for the other to see it was open, and guiltily backed towards the sofa…

  In the distance a shot shattered the silence. It would have come from the lower neighbourhood, perhaps even from the harbour. She saw the man outside get up. He would turn again to the window… or to the door… Now… A shove and the door opened wide. The stranger stepped inside. Olive-skinned, unshaven, tall and thin, in combat trousers, evening shoes, a shirt of the finest silk. The left sleeve, ripped off at the armhole, was roughly bound round his arm, round a bleeding wound.

  As he kicked the door shut she noticed with relief that he was not armed. The stranger took two uncertain steps into the hall, still breathing heavily. His eyes, which were looking at her inquiringly, were deep green and his long hair fell to his shoulders.

  His gaze, full of gratitude up to that moment, suddenly froze at the wall; the red, crescent flag; and in the middle the picture of a man dressed in khaki, a gun in his hand.

  “Is it?… Am I in a Turkish house?” he stammered as he looked at her.

  “Go,” she replied, incensed by what she saw in his eyes.

  “I’ll go… I’m going…” he mumbled; he paused at the door. “If I go out they’ll kill me.”

  The tramping at the end of the road had increased again.

  “If Mehmetzik* not kill, I will kill…”

  It was the voice of the old man. He had slipped noiselessly into the hall with a rifle in his hand.

  “I’m going… going now… Shall I go out by the yard?

  “No,” the father interrupted him in his broken Greek. And turned to his daughter. “Open the door.”

  “No… please… why?” begged the soldier.

  The old man’s finger fumbled for the trigger.

  But the daughter jumped up.

  “Not in here,” she cried shrilly. “Not in my house…”

  “Here, for my son to see,” replied the father, “and to rejoice at the punishment of his killer.”

  He turned to the stranger:

  “Yes. You not pity my Karim. Nor his mother. She died of grief in ’67… First you throw out of our house, she finish up holding photograph, flag, refugee in own place… What she do wrong, swine? What wrong Turkish mother do to you? Why you kill my Karim?

  Allah sends you, pay for all you did to my Karim at Mansoura* …”

  “Me? I was called up this Sunday… In ’67 I was in the third year of secondary school……

  “Greek born killer. Cunning snake from cradle. Out!”

  He pushed the soldier towards the door. But the young man turned round and darted to the back of the hall. The old man’s face went dark with anger. He kneed him in the wound. The man screamed and fell to his knees. But the blows to the same spot continued and then fell blindly, wherever hand and foot and gun struck. Crawling, avoiding the door, towards which the old man was pushing him, the man curled up behind the divan.

  There was another knock at the door. It was the Turkish officer; he ordered them to open up. The old man stood gasping; he looked at his daughter and signed to her to open. But she stood motionless, paralysed. He went to the door himself.

  The officer charged in with his automatic. He was the one they had already seen four times through the window.

  “Have you seen the Giaour**?” he asked the father.

  Before he got the answer his bleary gaze fell and remained on the young woman.

  “Allah has sent you, my Mehmetzik…” said the old man and knelt between the soldier’s boots, with his forehead on the worn marble.

  “Father, don’t,” the daughter said angrily and bent to help him to stand up.

  The officer did not take his eyes off her. Every undulation, every curve, revealed and emphasised her charms. Such beauty in this rotten place, where they had forced him to come to be killed and to kill, without him really knowing why, against his will, he had never seen before. He could not see, nor did he want to see anything but this female animal swaying before him. Overcome by desire, he could hear nothing except her melodious voice. He could not make out the words of the father which rose distorted from between his legs. “You’ve come at the right moment, my brave young fellow… my Prophet… I call you our Prophet! Who’ve come to save your people, whom the Giaour have uprooted and oppressed for twenty years…” Was it the old man or her speaking, the Turkish soldier wondered. What were they saying to him? Why didn’t they shut up for a bit?

  The daughter retreated. The gaze of the soldier made her weak at the knees. She sat down on the divan trembling, her legs together.

  “Where are you from?” said the young woman to interrupt her father, to distract the dazed soldier from his thoughts. And with an effort she smiled.

  But he took no notice at all of her or the old man’s muttering. His eyes were glued to her throat and to her breast.

  “Shall I get some lemonade, or fruit?”

  The officer still did not reply. Stepping over the father, he came close and laid his hand on her. She pulled back sharply but his fingers became pincers.

  “Leave me alone… Father…”

  She tried to get up but the man was now blocking her way. He had bent over her, pressing his whole body on top of hers. His beard was scratching her cheeks, his lips moved to her th
roat and her breast, which he was trying now to bare.

  Still on his knees and gaping at the scene, the old man could not believe his eyes. The reverence, the awe which had filled him a short while ago, were drowned in rage. Quickly for his advanced age – he was in his seventies – he got up, went for the Turk and gave him a forceful shove. But the officer was well on fire and pushing away the old man’s arm with a single move, fell on her again and ripped her blouse. The woman’s breast and belly gleamed in front of him. He was hurting with desire. He put his arm tightly round her waist, pulled her towards him, buried his head in her breast… His free hand was undoing his belt when the old man, raising the rifle over him, struck him on the back with it. The officer gave a yell, stood up half naked, lifted the old man up high, higher still, like a baby, and forced him violently to his knees between his legs. Writhing, the old man fell to the floor and doubled up. But the kicks and the blows continued till voices and orders were heard again in the lane outside. The Captain had arrived with his jeep and called for him.

  “Platoon Commander!”

  “I’m going now,” the officer said to the girl, leaving the old man covered with blood. “I’ll come back tonight. As for this old bag of bones, get rid of him or I’ll chop everything off…”

  He went out. The father raised his bloody head and spat at the door.

  “Filthy dog.”

  Then, doubled over, he went to his room. The daughter made to get up, to help him, but she couldn’t. She sank back on the divan and burst into tears. She stopped, sensing that someone was standing over her.