Freedom or Death

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  “While we are talking, Christians are being slaughtered. I cannot sit down. First call the soldiers and give the orders! Until I hear the trumpets I shall not sit down! Neither shall I go away.”

  “The devil take you! Damn the lot of you Cretans! Bad and good together!”

  Furiously he went out into the antechamber. His oaths mingled with the noise of officers rushing past with their scimitars and spurs.

  The Metropolitan, standing there on the threshold, sighed. “God has not found me worthy to hang in the doorway of the Residence. Never mind. It Is enough that the Christians will be saved,”

  The pasha came back, mopping his brow. “Now you’ll hear the trumpets,” he said. “Go! I’ve had enough of this business. I don’t want to sec anyone now. Is it earth I’m standing on, or a powder barrel?”

  At that same moment Captain Michales turned to Thrasaki. The boy had been kneeling close to his father and listening to what was happening in the streetEfen-dina’s cries, the Arab’s curses, the steps of the men running away, and now the sudden stillness which settled over the whole quarter. Only a sound of keening came from Idomeneas’ Fountain.

  “Are you hungry, Thrasaki?”

  “Yes, I’m hungry, Father.”

  “Then tell your mother to come down and prepare a meal. I think our work’s done for today.”

  He propped his gun against the step of the trough and felt for his tobacco box, to roll a cigarette. He heard the keening again. They’ve killed poor Idomeneas, he thought, and now his old nurse is mourning for him. He shook his head. What resistance could Idomeneas have put up? He must have been slaughtered like an Easter lamb.

  As he put the cigarette in his mouth there was a soi of trumpets and heavy, measured steps. Captain Michak^ stood up and cautiously opened the door. About twenty! soldiers with shouldered arms marched past, on patrol. A| crier ran at their head, calling out, “Peace! Peace! Come] out of your houses, Christians!”

  Next day the pasha issued a command: “What has; happened has happened. Destiny so willed it. But now let peace reign; not a nose is to bleed any more! Let fortress gates be opened, let the Christians come back from the villages and the Mussulman farmers go back to the villages. And those who have gone out into the villages to resist are to lay down their arms and take up their work again. Not a hair of their heads will be touched. The Sultan is merciful and pardons. Mussulmans and Christians, by my good will, h’sten to the words of the pasha. For in my forecourt stands the plane tree, and.the noose is waiting for the disobedient!”

  The Turks wiped their knives clean and once more sat cross-legged in the coffeehouses, smoking their narghiles and listening with half-closed eyes to the chubby-faced Turkish boy as he sang in Ms womanish voice. The Christians ventured out from their houses, gathered up the “murdered and summoned Kolyvas from his village. Murzuflos, Kajabes, Vendusos, Furogatos and the others shouldered picks, and began to dig long trenches in the cemetery before the Kanea Gate. Graves were also dug in the churchyard of the Sinai Church of Saint Matthew, near the Pervola.

  Manoles the pope, panting and with his sMrt sleeves rolled up, laid the dead together by fives, spoke the prayers in haste, commended each group of five to Heaven and turned his attention to the next five.

  For thr^e days the men dug graves and the women washed doorsteps and bedrooms clean of blood and mourned in silence, so that the agas would not hear and be enraged anew. For hi their glance and gait one could discern the after-tremors of the massacre.

  On the fourth day Captain Michales called his son into his small room and said to him:

  “Thrasaki, the time for the rising has come. Let the pasha say what he will, he’s an Anatolian, he understands nothing. Once Crete has caught fire, it isn’t easily put out. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Father.”

  “So tomorrow, first thing, we men must get the women and children out of Megalokastro. I’ll go at the head, you bring up the rear. Understand?”

  “Can I keep the pistol?”

  “What? Do you suppose we shall be unarmed? We’re going to your grandfather’s. Tell your mother to get ready.”

  In the afternoon Captain Michales rode to the Hospital Gate and out, and reached the widow’s inn. He dismounted and called the lively widow. She appeared, plump, bowing and scraping.

  “I’m leaving my mare here this evening. Feed her well. I shall fetch her tomorrow morning. Get three asses ready for me as well.”

  “You’re taking to the open, Captain Michales?” the widow asked, slowly and ostentatiously buttoning her bodice. “Does that mean the massacre isn’t over?”

  “It’s just beginning,” he answered, and without lingering strode swiftly back, to reach the fortress gate before it closed.

  It was now full summer. A south v/ind was blowing from the Libyan desert and whirling a blinding dust along the road. Captain Michales kept his face toward the sea, to breathe some cool air. He could see the uninhabited island of Dia, bare, rose-pink and shaped like a turtle swimming in the sea.

  Some time ago, in a mood of depression, he had taken a boat, set sail, and after some hours had reached the deserted island. He had landed at the little, stony All Saints’ Harbor. He had made his boat fast and climbed upward in the oppressive heat. The cliffs glowed, the air danced. Two sea gulls flew over his head, swooped down,

  Talmost grazing him, and screeched in amazement. Between the boulders the frisking rabbits sat up and eyed him. Captain Michales had climbed to the very peak. He had looked about him: loneliness, the island a heap of stones, and on all sides the sea, deep blue, with wild waves. The air was purehuman breath had not yet spoiled it. That’s where I’d like to live, he had thought. On 5nose. dfiffis. I’m sick oi ttesYi ••waXer and gteen gri and people.

  Quickening his pace he reached the fortress gate and passed through. A few corpses were still lying hi the leys; there was a stench of corruption. He stopped front of Furogatos’ small house and pushed the open. He went into the miserable hovel and loo! around. No one. “Hey! Anybody there?” he called.

  He caught a high, timid little voice, like a bird’s. Andj slowly, out of a large, bulging cloak there arose, gleaming in the dusk, the little bald head of the terrified Bertodu-j los.

  “Who’s there? Who’s there?” he asked bunded by fear. “Don’t be afraid, Mr. Bertodulos. It’s I.” He recognized Captain Michales, and his heart returned to normal.

  „ “Welcome, noble sir!” he said, raising his hand as though to take off his hat rnd greet him.

  “Are you ill, Mr. Bertodulos? Your teeth are chattering, Are you cold?”

  “No, Captain. I’m frightened.” “Aren’t you ashamed?” “No, Captain, I’m not ashamed.” He wrapped himself hi his cloak, sat upright and! leaned back against the wall. He crossed himself. “Kyrie eleison,” he said. “It passes my understanding how a man can take a knife and kill another man! I don’t understand it. I couldn’t even kill a lamb. Did I say a lamb? Wi you believe it, Captain? Cutting up a cucumber makes me shudder.”

  “Where’s Furogatos?”

  “God protect him, Captain. What shall I say? A heart; of gold. When the massacre broke out, he took me from my room. I couldn’t walk for terror. Holdk_ me by the arm, and with his lyre over his shoulder, we set off. In the streets what Turkish ruffians there were, Captain! What mustaches! What legs! I hid my face in my cloak, so as to see nothing. He didn’t put me down till we reached the water trough in Ms yard. His wife rushed out, saw the lyre, Jooked at me and shrieked tike a demon. ‘They’re trying to murder us, and you carry lyres about with you?’ She regarded me too as a lyre! But God was merciful to us. Next day she went off to her village and we were rid of her.”

  Furogatos now appeared. “Welcome, Captain Michales, to my poor hovel. I know what you want from me. I’ve come direct from your house. When?”

  “Tomorrow. Call Vendusos and Kajabes too. War, too, is a feast. I’m inviting you.”

  “That’s fine, Cap
tain. But what about him?” said Furogatos, pointing to Bertodulos.

  Bertodulos listened, his eyes wide. He understood what the two Cretans were talking about: guns, mountains and hiding places. His teeth began to chatter again.

  Captain Michales looked down at the good-natured old man, who had now muffled himself up completely.

  “We’ll take him too,” he said. “One more won’t do any harm. He’ll come as a guest.”

  The count stretched out his head. The last five or six hairs on it stood on end.

  “Into the mountains?” he screamed. “With the guns?”

  “No. With the women and children. You’ll gossip with them and make them forget everything,” said Captain Michales, and strode to the door. “Till we meet again.”

  “Where are we meeting, Captain?” Furogatos asked.

  “Up on Selena, above Petrokefalo, in old Sefakas’ sheep pen.”

  He went out and passed through a narrow alley. Barba Jannis was on the way home with his empty bronze can, tired and depressed. When he saw Captain Michales he stopped.

  “Captain,” he said, “much blood has flowed. Let’s think how we are to avenge it.”

  But Captain Michales shoved him aside. He had no patience now with idiots and half-idiots.

  He halted at Captain Stefanes’ modest dwelling. The self-willed ship’s master was sitting alone on his small sofa, darning. As an old sailor he was well up in all sorts of woman’s work. Every day he swept his little house as if it were a ship’s deck, and filled Saint Nicholas’ lamp with oil, although in the hour of stress the saint had not stirred a foot to come to his help and save his Dardana from going to the bottom. “The poor thing can’t always get to all the ships that are in distress at sea! He has a right, all the same, to the oil he consumes,” he would say each morning, filling the little lamp to the brim.

  Now he raised his eyes from his needle. “Welcome, Captain Michales,” he said, bowing. “What wild north wind has blown you here?”

  Captain Michales gazed at him in silence.

  “I understand,” said Stefanes. “You’re getting your band together. But if you were thinking of adding me to your list, count me out.”

  “I think you too are getting ready for action though. Come with me, Captain Stefanes.”

  “No, I tell you. I’m no good on dry land. The earth requires legs, and I’m a hobbler. I’m going to Syra, to the Cretan Committee. They’re giving me a ship.”

  He turned to the icon. “Are you listening, Saint Nicholas? Don’t play me another trick like last time!”

  “Good-by then, Captain Stefanes. If I never see you again, forgive me, and may God forgive you.”

  The sea wolf laughed. “That’s just what Polyxigis said to me the day before yesterday… . You fool, I’m. not going to die yet. I don’t need any farewells.”

  His mocking old eyes twinkled as he called after Captain Michales, who was on his way to the door: “Hey, Captain Michales, Polyxigis has beaten you to it. He has already hoisted the banner and set up his headquarters in

  Kasteli. He’s got his little hanum with him too, so they say.”

  Captain Michales stood still. His face darkened. The world around him swayed. He gripped the iron latch, and the nails with which it was fastened to the door gave. As if the house was falling, he gave a leap and rushed out into the street.

  “Hey, Captain Wildboar, just call: Emine! and she’ll come to you. …”

  Next morning they started. At their head was Captain Michales, his pistols and knives thrust well down in his leather belt, his thick woolen cloak flung about him. Behind him was his wife, erect and fearless, with the infant in her arms. Renio walked beside her mother carrying a cloth in which were wrapped her best clothes and her mother’s trinkets. Bringing up the rear was Thrasaki, straining to appear taller than he was. Ali Aga had gone ahead, an hour earlier, with two asses, and was waiting by the Three Vaults.

  The soldiers with dark faces and shouldered arms guarded the fortress gate. Noisy bands of peasants were pressing in, and the vault of the gate rang once more with shouting and neighing. Captain Michales opened his cloak and held it before his face, as if to shield himself from the dust. He slid close along the wall and escaped in the crowd. “Hurry up! hurry up!” Thrasaki ordered the women, and himself squeezed through, whistling and pretending indifference. They made a hurried stop at the inn, to get the mare and the asses.

  Toward evening they arrived at the patriarchal farmhouse of Captain Sef akas.

  The front yard was a seething mass of grandchildren, male and female. Here, during the bloody days in Megalokastro, they had gone ahead with the vintage and had gathered the grapes intc the huge wine >ress in the yard. And now sturdy lads, naked to the waist, were treading the grapes, tipsy with the smell of the must.

  Captain Michales’ nostrils quivered joyfully. The scent of grape juice seemed to him sweet as blood. “Greetings, ephews,” he shouted, and Katerina turned towards her husband, amazed at the gay note in his voice.

  They walked into the middle of the yard. The grandfather came forward, his lean arms in the wide-sleeved white shirt stretched out in greeting.

  “Welcome, children, and grandchildren!” he said. “Eat and drink. All is yours.”

  “I’ll hand your daughter-in-law and grandchildren over to you,” said Captain Michales. “I’m going into the mountains.”

  “All right, Michales! You have been a wild colt since you were a child. You still haven’t grown prudent.”

  “I shall grow prudent only when Crete is freed.”

  “Then,” said the grandfather, joking, “it were better not freed. If you become prudent, it’ll make no difference whether you’re alive or dead!”

  Father and son jested so, with affectionate give and take, until the huge table had been laid inside the house, The old man’s daughters-in-law and grandchildren, left him by his sons, dead and living, went in and out. The ground floor, the yards, the bedrooms upstairs and the flat roofs were full of his family. In these perilous days they had all gathered from the neighboring villages under Nthe old man’s magnanimous protection. With them came also their asses and mules, cattle and dogs and sheep. Now Captain Michales’ mare joined them.

  The neighboring villages were astir when the arrival of Captain Michales became known. Next day he rode out on his mare and made the round of his command, to stoke up the rebellion.

  “A lot of blood has flowed in Megalokastro, brothers!” he cried in each village. “A lot of blood! Honor demands that we avenge it. Forward! To arms!”

  He left the villages behind and climbed up Selena. In front of his father’s pen he planted his bannera piece of black cloth with red letters: FREEDOM OR DEATH. He sent two palikars to the peak of the mountain, to light a fire there. They did not come down until they had passed the ignal on to the other crests to the east and west, which took up the message and carried the fire further.

  Thodores heard from his sentinels that his uncle had arrived. When they met, he kissed his uncle’s hand.

  “Thodores, you crazy fool, didn’t I tell you to stay in your nest? But you, a beardless lad, were in a hurry and disobeyed me. Take your banner down, fold it up and hide it in your breast. Unfold it only if I’m killed.”

  The captains of eastern Crete saw the beacons, understood the message and gathered in the sheep pens of old Sefakas. Captain Michales sent his father a message, asking him for permission to slaughter his sheep to feed the leaders.

  “It is great luck for my sheep to be fodder for captains,” answered the grandfather. “Only don’t touch the big bellwetherthe black one. I’m keeping him for my funeral.”

  On the fifteenth of August, the royal festival of the Assumption of the Virgin, the captains sat together in a row in the open space of the large pen, while the sheep were being turned on the spits. That day the grandfather also had climbed the mountain on foot, to take part in the national assembly.

  They were fourteen in all. Each one had
his story, which surrounded him like an aura. There were three immortals in this assembly. A throne had been erected for them, a wide bench covered with sheeps’ fleece. The younger onesthose under seventysat on stones, flanking the three.

  On the big bench in the middle sat the grandfather. A hundred-year-old lion with a flowing beard that now covered his open, shaggy chest with its wound-scars from the great rising. His eyes were shaded by thick, bristling eyebrowsso thick that he had to stroke them back in order to see. In spite of his many years his cheeks had remained fiery red, and when he grew angry one could see the blood throbbing in hL temples. His arteries had nowhere become chalky; tirelessly they gave drink to that aged body. And it was still thirsty and drank, full of eagerness. He had not yet had enough of the world. He touched, heard, saw, tasted and smelled it with the same longing as a twenty-year-old. He saw men and women as tiny creatures swarming about his feet. He was sorry for them and laid his hand on their heads to instill courage into them. Shedding human blood was no pleasure to him. But as soon as it came to a fight with the Turks his eyes grew wild and his hands never wearied of slaying them. He quite forgot at such times that the Turks too were human.

  The peasants honored him, and came on Sundays and high feast days to the village square to sit at his feet. In his old age he resembled one of the ancient gods, the immortals. When the elders of Crete assembled to deliberate about feedom and death, they made him sit in the center, and when the captains stood up to speak, they looked at him.

  To the right of the grandfather in today’s assembly sat another old warrior, Captain Mandakas. His hair and beard were short, his neck thick, his bone structure clumsy, his face furrowed with scars from Turkish scimitars. He had an ear missing, bitten off by a Turk in 1821. Two fingers of his left hand were also missing; when a young man, he had been bitten by a poisonous snake, and had himself hacked them off with an ax, to save his hand. It was a pleasure to him to see Turkish blood flow. Each time Crete had taken up arms, he had hurled himself blindly on the Turkish soldiers. He had stormed through the Turkish villagesplundered, burned and escaped. He killed Turkish women too; during a rising, he had no other interest in them. He had been a tremendous wencher in his day, but in wartime he had kept away from women. He would not even touch his own wife, as long as he was carrying a gun. If he saw her coming to bring him food or cartridges, he would shout at her: “Don’t come near me, damn you! don’t inflame me! Put it all on a dish and go away!” But when the war adventure was over he would rush from village to village, rom embrace to embrace, in festive delirium. Now a graybeard, the one pleasure remaining to him was to swagger out to an assembly of the captains with his silver pistols, and show the scars on his chest.