“I’ve just drunk some, thank you,” answered Ali Aga, as he made a bow to each of the women. “And I’ve had a biscuit too and some excellent cherry jam. Many thanks, all the same.”
“Oh, what’s it matter, Ali Aga? Might as well be bung for a sheep as a lamb. Drink ‘another to keep us company,” the women called out with one voice, for they knew his pride and his poverty. He was as poor as a church mouse and had had nothing neither coffee nor biscuit nor jam. All his life he had been hungry, and food was his one thought. He was always talking of good things to eat, and he dribbled as he talked. The women seized at once on his favorite subject, for the fun of it.
“And what good things did you have to eat at lunch, Ali Aga,” said Katinitsa, starting the ball rolling and winking at the others. “You’re such a connoisseur, God knows. I expect you had chicken’s breast.”
Ali Aga smiled contentedly. He smacked his lips and stuck the knitting needles into his sash. Then the washed-out old man greedily began describing how tender today’s chicken had been, with what he had seasoned it, what sauce he had devised and how nicely the oven had browned it. He talked and talked, smacked his lips and sighed.
The women, suppressing their laughter, plied him with questions and led him on.
“Won’t you ever stop eating meat and sauces, All Aga? You’ll ruin your health. Eat some vegetables, too, from time to time. Too much meat is bad for you, you know.”
“I’ll give you a plate of cabbage this evening, neighbor,” said Mastrapas’ wife. “You’ll see how it helps your digestion. All that white .bread you eat must be heavy on the stomach.”
“And too much caviar, neighbor, does a man in,” Penelope added quickly. “I’ll give you a dish of chopped olives. You’ll see, they’re bitter, and they sharpen your appetite.”
The proud old man, sadly unprosperous in a Greek neighborhood, lived on such good-humored charity. Thus the women whiled away their afternoon. Now that All Aga’s evening meal had been taken care of, there began a long conversation about the signs of spring in the countryside, and about men, who were all libertines and, sighed Mastrapas’ wife, had no taste for any but unlawful flesh. And Katinitsa complained that her husband ate too much and snored and prevented her from sleeping.
Murzuflos, the stocky sacristan up there on the bell tower of Saint Menas’, had, for a long while, been holding his hand to his ear and listening to Megalokastro as it hummed like a hive of bees. Murzuflos could distinguish the wild shouts of men crying their wares, the blows of the blacksmiths’ hammers, the gray headed beggars singing pitifully and knocking at the doors, dogs barking, horses neighing and the little bells the kids wore, as they were driven in to Megalokastro on Saturday evening to be slaughtered.
Suddenly he felt scornful of the voices and the tumult. “Quiet! It’s time for me to speak!” he growled, and gripped the bell ropes of the three bells which hung above him. “Five and seventy years have I now been listening to you. I’ve had enough.”
It was seldom that Murzuflos opened his mouth to 1 peak. What was there to say? What he himself did not say he uttered by means of his three bells. They were mouths, they bad tongues, they shouted. Secretly he had christened them and given them names: the middle one, the largest, was Saint Menas, the protector and lord of Megalokastro; the one on the right was Elefteria (Freedom); on the left was Thanatos (Death). The voice of AiMenas always rang out deep and commanding. Immediately afterward Elefteria spurted forth gaily and playfully, like cool water. Last, dragging heavily after, came Thanatos. These three voices came out of the entrails of that gray-haired church servant out of the entrails of Crete. Fearlessly they announced, over Christian roofs, Turkish streets and the pasha’s palace, the longing for revenge and the yearning of the oppressed.
The soul of Murzuflos with its three voices of silver and bronze rang out triumphantly and encouraged Megalokastro, though enslaved by the Turks, to celebrate the four festivals of the year: Christmas, Easter, Saint Menas’ day (the eleventh of November) and, above all, Saint George’s day, the name day of the King of Greece. In imagination Murzuflos decked himself with laurels to welcome Saint George as he arrived in Crete, riding on a white steed, wearing a fustanella and white silk waistcoat, a leather belt and silver pistols. He wore pointed shoes, too, with red tassels. Behind him on the horse sat a little girl, a King’s daughter, Elefteria. She came from Athens. And every year, on the twenty-third of April, Saint George landed at Megalokastro, and Murzuflos, hanging on the three bells in the dance, was the first to see him as he came up from the harbor and the first to greet him by rapturously swinging Saint Menas, Freedom and Death.
But today Murzuflos was depressed. For today, the first of April, seventy-five years had gone by how, though, had they gone by since he was born. Suddenly for the first time, he felt that he was growing old, and he was afraid he would die without witnessing the liberation of Crete. Will someone else, then, ring the bells on that holy day? No, Murzuflos’ soul could not endure that. No, this glass of several colors and black silk cords. They were carried only at rich funerals. The unmarried, friendless Miss Chrysanthe, grown old in toil, had now no other demand to make of life than a funeral with the fine lanterns.
When she was young she had prayed Saint Menas to send her a good husband; he was to be handsome and a hard-working family man. Later, after long hoping and hoping against hope, she had asked the saint to help her brother in his business. During peacetime, when Polyxigis was unemployed, he had opened a shop by the Kanea Gate and had bought wine, oil, grapes, lemons and turnips from the peasants. He then sold them again to the wholesalers the whole-hoggers, as he called them and rilled his cashbox with Turkish pounds and gold napoleons. “Help my brother’s trade, Saint Menas, to go well,” she had then prayed. “For the service I’m asking you shall never lack gifts: candles, wine and oil all that a saint needs. Let us also have plenty to eat. Plentiful, good food, you know, is as good as a husband and children: a great consolation for mortals. It’s all very well for AH Aga to say, ‘I won’t get stout and lay up fat for the worms.’ Ah! my poor Ali Aga, that servant of God, fasts because he’s got nothing to eat.”
She Jiad sacrificed her whole life for her sturdy brother. For him she washed, sewed, scrubbed, cooked and yearned. What a vigorous man, what a real master he is! she used to think. No one would think of calling him a good-for-nothing. Women are made for men let nun have his fun! She was one with him, they had been born of the same flesh on the same day, and if she was growing into an old hen, that didn’t matter at all, if only he stayed young and slim! Yes, I’m happy with him, she thought. Poor me, I sit up for him at night and it gives me something to live for, even if I do sleep all alone.
Every time he came home at dawn from his gadding, Miss Chrysanthe gladly started up out of her sleep, pulled off his boots for him, warmed water for him to wash in and made him a cup of coffee, very bitter, to refresh him. And when she came near him, she sniffed secretly and longingly at his mustache and hair for the heavy fragrance left there by the women.
So even poor Miss Chrysanthe enjoyed love in this world.
But lately, now that she was really aging and her legs were getting more and more swollen, she prayed Saint Menas for only one thing, as every Saturday evening she brought him her present to put him in a favorable mood: to arrange, out of his goodness, for her to die before her brother, that he might hire the grand lanterns for her.
When, at the other end of Megalokastro, at the Kanea Gate, Polyxigis heard the evening bell, he made the sign of the Cross on his silk waistcoat, sketchily and without thinking, in the midst of playing the mandolin. Then he sprang up nimbly to shut his shop.
He was a handsome man, well built and untroubled-looking: a dandy, always dressed like a youth of twenty, in woolen breeches, a knitted silken waistcoat, a broad silk sash and cream gaiters as worn by Turkish and Christian fops alike. The gaiters were slit down the middle from top to bottom and laced with red laces, to give full value to the smart
masculine leg.
Polyxigis now put on his big fez, tilted it to one side so that its tassel fell saucily over his left shoulder, and set out on his way, striding from stone to stone, to the good barber Paraskevas.
Every Saturday he had himself shaved. On the way to the barber’s shop he would stop frequently to greet friendly shopkeepers. Here and there, too, he cracked a joke, here and there drank a raki, and went on his way with his fez still more to one side and his step still lighter. He enjoyed the sense that his body was so brimming with strength, and all his internal organs going like clockwork. He enjoyed, too, having not a care in his head. He had once read in a pamphlet something that had made a great impression on him: Kanares, the fighter for freedom, was asked one day how he managed to perform so many heroic deeds, and that fisherman and commander of munitions ships had answered: “Children, I always tell myself, Kanares, you’ve got to die sometime.”
Since that day, Captain Polyxigis had worn his fez to one side, and whether it was a war or a party that faced him, he would say: “Polyxigis, you’ve got to die sometime,” and he was always the first to step forward. He had also engaged workmen and had them build for him a room like monument of stone and marble hi the churchyard. It was an underground vault, with ledges and cushions all around, with a low table in the middle and a cupboard sunk hi the wall, where full bottles and raki glasses were always kept. When he was in the mood, Captain Polyxigis would fill a basket with dainties, take a few bold friends with him, and go with them to the monument. There they would set to, seriously drinking and discussing war, women and death.
So now Captain Polyxigis walked along, and two red feathers adorned his temples. First, it was going to be a lovely evening: not a leaf was stirring, from the courtyards came the scent of April roses, the gutters were moist and the earth was fragrant. But this pleasure was not all. Soon -Signor Paraskevas would lather him, shave him and anoint his hair with good pomade, and then Polyxigis would emerge from the shop looking like a lad of twenty. Then he would turn into the shadowy alleys to have a look at his boon companions and his wenches.
Captain Polyxigis sighed. “Ah, if there is a God, let Him make a miracle! I want it now! I’m in my prime, now’s when I want the miracle! A few years back I was a clown and understood nothing. How was I to understand what women and wine and war meant? A few years more and I shall have shot my bolt. How will I still enjoy the world with no teeth or digestion? I’ll go and have a look at the women and talk like the fox about the grapes… . Saint George, I think you are the saint who understands me best. I always admire you in the icons, the way you ride there and have a woman sitting behind you, Ai-George, my name-saint, my cousin, help me and have no fear. For I’m stirring my stumps already.”
So saying, he pushed his fez over his forehead and turned into Broad Street.
Broad Street was one of the two chief arteries of Megalokastro. It ran from the Kanea Gate on the west as far as the Hospital Gate, where the large square, the Three Vaults, and the pasha’s gardens were. There under a group of dusty trees stood a wooden kiosk where, every Friday, a military band played. The other chief artery ran from the New Gate down to the harbor. At their crossing was the main square, the heart of the town. On Broad Street were the cobblers’ shops, the glass and china shops, the stores, the Greek coffeehouses and the grocery shops. From the shops, which extended without a break, there came always the sound of loud conversation: shopkeepers, assistants and apprentices joking, chaffing each other, chattering and bursting into laughter. And woe to him if Efendina or any bowlegged, squinting or half-witted creature came by! The cobblers would all bang on their lasts at once, the apprentices would whistle and where did they find so many bits of lemon peel and rotten tomatoes?
On Saturday evenings love was in the air. Today, as usual, Broad Street was bubbling. The bell for evening service had brought it to tumult pitch. This week, too, was over, God be thanked. Artisans’ lads and shop assistants pulled off their aprons and bent down to the gutters to wash their work away. They washed and tidied themselves, twirled their mustaches and brought out the chairs, to sit down. They ordered their coffee the way they liked it, and their narghiles. Soon, too, on her way from the main square, Ruheni the Moorish woman would pass by: a mountain of dark, glowing flesh, with a necklace of thick glass beads the kind usually worn by horses around her neck. Her breasts drooped right down to her belly. She always had a friendly laugh and used her eyes roguishly. Her teeth flashed, and on her head she balanced a dish of sesame cakes. And lo and behold, from the direction of Idomeneas’ fountain came Tulupanas also, silent and sad as always, with a tray in ach hand, the one full of spinach pasties, the other of sesame rings with cinnamon. It was no longer Broad Street. It was a great manor house where the dainties were just being passed around.
For a moment Captain Polyxigis paused and felt proud of the Greek street: the full shops, the plentiful merchandise, the pure air and not a Turk in sight. The Christians were laughing and joking, the bell was ringing. This is Paradise, thought Captain Polyxigis, there’s nothing missing, except the flag with the cross on it. But that too will come, we Cretans will bring it about. So he told himself and moved on. He gave greetings right and left and entered the barber’s shop.
The shadows were broadening, the muezzin had now climbed the minaret to call the faithful to evening prayer. But before deciding to send his voice up to the sky, he paused for an instant, wound the green cloth around the white cap he wore, and glanced down and around at the world.
“Allah, Allah,” he murmured, “try as she may, man will never be able wholly to fill the eyes Thou hast given him, when he looks upon the world.”
He leaned out upon the lattice. of the minaret and rejoiced over Megalokastro how it spread below him, many-colored and many-voiced, with its white minarets, with the copper domes of the saints, with the flag of the Prophet, with the pasha’s gardens. Overcome with the sweet fullness, he sighed, and said:
“Blessedness includes all, all, all! Women are there, and handsome palikars like Nuri. When I see him storm in on his charger I become twenty years old. There are slender youths, too, white as little rolls of bread, who sing hi the coffeehouses in the evening, and you feel giddy and don’t know where you should go to praise God to the mosque or to the coffeehouses. And even the stench here, by Mohammed, enchants me. When I go out to the Hospital Gate and take a deep breath and smell the dung cast out by our little Cretan donkeys, my heart becomes a garden and I believe it too is about to be manured. And I wouldn’t trade this stench of Megalokastro for all the patchouli in the world. To others it’s a stink, but it pleases me!”
He breathed deeply and put his hands over his ears. And suddenly from the depths of his body his voice thundered, deep and pure, bearing all love and prayer in its impetus. What sweetness there was hi it, and what might! And how far this voice of the muezzin surpassed all the bells of Murzuflos! Like a lark, it climbed up toward the sun with outstretched beak, struck into the sky and called God. Then it fell suddenly upon Megalokastro. It had drunk its fill of God and was intoxicated.
At the moment when the muezzin was praising Nuri so lovingly, Nuri was returning moodily from his estate. He had gone there to wear himself out. But shame still clung to his face and neck and exposed chest and burned him. His horse was puffing yellowish foam: it too had something wrong with it today, it was weak at the knees and kept stumbling. The sea had a glow and foam and a swell, yet there was not a breath of wind stirring. He crossed the River Jofyro. The first leaves were sprouting on the vines, the almond trees were already hi blossom, the fig trees were heavily fragrant.
“Nothing, nothing,” groaned Nuri Bey, “nothing can console me. Curse the sea, the trees and the sun!”
Before him stood Captain Michales again, just as when he had stretched his two fingers hi the glass. Nuri Bey heard the glass crack, and Emine fell on the captain’s neck.
“Shame on me!” he said aloud. “The earth ought to open and swallow me
. Since you’re no longer the best man in the land, what do you still want of life? Anathema upon it!”
He went over the whole of last night in his mind. What a turmoil it had been, what a drunken orgy so much so that he had lain on his own threshold, dead drunk hi muck! Then, he remembered, sleep had overcome him,
CHAPTER 3
NIGHTS LAY HEAVY and dead upon the town. The air was sultry. Captain Michales slept badly. The damp weight was oppressive. Kastrians, men and women, opened their windows, went out into their yards and unbuttoned their nightshirts to get some air. Several old women scented disaster and sat on their doorsteps, but dared not open their mouths for fear of betraying their thoughts. They were afraid the evil destiny of Megalokastro might overhear them and put into action what, they suspected, was not yet finally decided.
And so they whispered together and tried to keep small talk going yet their speech kept returning to the secret, unavowed anxiety: “Do you remember the last time? Not a leaf was stirring… .” “Be quiet!” “Can’t you hear a hummapg under your feet?” “Be quiet!”
And they bolted themselves inside their souls again and waited for the relief of sunrise.
Veiled in copper-colored shreds of cloud, a darkly wrathful sun came up behind the Lasithi mountains. The minarets caught fire, the sea flushed, Murzuflos rang the trinity of bells. The Greek quarter awoke from its stupor, doors opened, and out stepped the householders, all washed clean, in their Sunday suits and shuts with collars. Husband, wife, behind them the mother-in-law and in front of them the children, the boys with folded white handkerchiefs in their hands, the little girls with ribbons in their hair.
They were on their way the noble, gray-haired guardians of Megalokastro to honor the mounted saint, AiMenas. They wanted, too, to hear today’s sermon by the Metropolitan and to receive nourishment at his hands. Today was Sunday. There was no business, the shops were shut; for this one day the great trader Satan was asleep. People were glad to accept the word of God it cost nothing, one lost nothing by it. Tomorrow there would again be weights and measures and haggling, and each trying to eat up the other. Six days belong to the Devil and one to God: light the lamps for both, then you’ll surely be hi favor.
Freedom or Death Page 8