They entered the harbor. On the right gleamed the stone lion of Venice with’the open Gospel in its claws. The harbor rang with the din and reeked of rotten lemons, oil and turnips. Kosmas jumped onto the mole and grasped his wife’s hand.
“Step with the right foot first,” he said softly. “It’s a jungle you’re coming into! In God’s name!”
She stepped on land with her right foot and hung exhausted on her husband’s arm. “I’m tired,” she said, as cold sweat broke out on her temples. “The house is close by. Be brave. We’ve arrived.” They advanced. Kosmas gazed insatiably at the houses, the people, the streets. All had grown oldthe black hair white, the cheeks shriveled, the colors washed out, the walls flaky, many of them crumbling. Weeds grew on many thresholds.
He squeezed his wife’s hand. “This is my country,” he said. “This is the earth where I was born.”
The woman bent down and picked up a bit of earth, and let it trickle down between her fingers. “It’s warm,”
I she said. “I like that.” She thought of her own distant, cold country. They lost themselves in the narrow alleys. Kosmas, who had let go his wife’s arm, strode hastily forward. His heart beat violently. He turned into a small street. From afar he made out the parental door, which was shut. The window above it was also shut. No one in the street, no voices. It was as in a dream. He approached the old rched doorway with the thick iron ring. His knees were trembling. Then he plucked up courage and knocked.
In the yard, steps became audible. Someone sighed. Then silence. He knocked again. The door opened. A short, lean old woman, quite white and clothed all in black, appeared. As she looked at the newcomer, she cried out, “My child!” and leaned against the doorpost for support.
Now the sister came too, short and lean like her mother, with gray hair and eyes dimmed by hopelessness.
Joy, tears. Hands grasped eagerly at the beloved body. Even as the mother pressed her big son again and again to her bosom and spoke to him as though he were still a child, she noticed the young woman on the threshold.
“Is that?” asked the mother softly.
“Yes, my wife.”
The sister turned curiously to look at her. The mother whispered to her son, “Why did you marry her? A foreigner!”
“Mother,” said the son softly, kissing the shriveled hand, “I must ask a favor of you.”
“You’re my one and only son. Need you ask? I hang on your words, command me!”
“I entrust my wife to you, Mother. Love her. And my s6n,” he added, more softly still.
The mother started. She gazed at her son speechlessly, asking, imploring.
“Yes,” he went on, “she is carrying your grandson.”
A delicious warmth rose to her throat and cheeks. But suddenly a shudder overcame her. “Have you asked permission of your father?” she said, muffling her voice. “Does he know? He decides. You must ask him. I’m afraid of him.” She whispered, so that the dead man might not hear.
“What can he do to us?” asked the son, his heart faltering.
“How should I know, my child? Has he still a body, so that one can know where he is? Perhaps he’s in the yard at this moment, forbidding her to cross the threshold.”
The son cried furiously, “He’s no right to do that! He’s no longer in command here. I’ll bring her in!” His voice was suddenly rough as he said, “Chrysula, come!”
He took her by the hand. “Mother, your daughter,” he said.
The young woman bent down to kiss the mother’s hand. Then she stood there and waited.
The mother looked at her closely. She caught sight of the little golden chain around her neck.
“You’re baptized?” the old woman asked.
“She is baptized,” answered the son. “Here is the cross. She bears your name, Mother. She was called Noemi, now she’s called Chrysula.”
He took the chain and pulled from her bosom a small golden cross.
“She is welcome,” said the mother and, hesitating slightly, touched her head. They went into the house.
Kosmas walked about with heavy heart. He paced up and down, silently caressing the doors, the old furniture, the heavy clock and the silver pistols of his ancestors, next to the icons.
“And how’s Grandfather?” he asked.
“In his village. A hundred years old, but full of vigor. Charos doesn’t touch him. He always asks after you.”
The two women sat down on the very old, wide divan. The mother looked at her son, who had ripened into a man. He was like his grandfather, Captain Sefakas. The same eyes, which looked at things with warmth and tenderness, the same attractive, eloquent mouth. She cast a sidelong glance at his wife. What am I to say to her? she thought. Another race. Another God created her. I don’t like her.
And the young woman saw the stony yard, the pots of basil, the wintry bare vine trellis above the trough… . And beyond the yard, behind the tendrils, limitless plains under snow and forests under ice and dark towns and cossacks with naked sabers who broke the doors in and fell upon the Jews … and the snow, melted and stained y hot blood … and the shrieks of fleeing men, women and children….
She turned around. She saw the old woman observing her. She tried to smile and could not manage it. Her eyes filled with tears.
The old woman was touched. “What are you thinking of?” she asked. “Your country? Where were you born?”
“A long, long way from here … in a dark town full of factories.”
“What sort of factories? What did they make?”
“Cannons, rifles, machinery. But my father” She wanted to say: “He didn’t soil his hands with these things, he was a rabbi.” But she kept it to herself.
“What was your father?” the old woman asked.
“He was a good man,” she answered with a sigh.
The mother stood up, went out into the yard, broke off a sprig of basil and brought it to her. “Do you have basil in your country?” she asked.
“No.”
“It grew on the grave of Christ,” said the old woman.
Meanwhile the good news had spread. Chattering excitedly, the women of the neighborhood came running. The house filled. They examined the Jewish girl from head to toes as though she were some extraordinary animal.
Kosmas watched his wife with sympathy. She seemed to him like a wounded swan among a flock of geese of ducks.
Maria, the sister, brought the salver with dainties and coffee. She wore a broad black band around her throat to hide the wrinkles. She eyed Chrysula with enmity, for this girl was young and pretty and had snatched her brother from her.
Kosmas stood up. The first joy of homecoming was over. He had no time to lose.
“I’m going on a little round, to greet Kastro again,” he said, and hurried off to the Metropolitan’s Residence.
The Metropolitan had been waiting for Kosmas since] early that morning when he had heard the steamer whistle as it entered the harbor. “Grant, O God,” he had murmured, crossing himself, “that he is bringing good tidings for Christendom.”
Kosmas went swiftly through the streets. The beloved town had aged and crumbledit was beginning to fall into dust, which the wind would carry away. One day, certainly, a new town would be built here but it would not be his. Beloved Crete, he thought tenderly, we’re growing old.
He reached AiMenas, strode across the forecourt, and greeted tH old lemon tree, under whose blossoming boughs the Metropolitan celebrated the Resurrection every year. He climbed the staircase of the Residence two steps at a time.
The Metropolitan rose, unquiet and impatient. “Welcome, Kosmas,” he said. “God sends you in a heavy hour. What are you bringing us?”
Kosmas kissed the Metropolitan’s hand. “This letter, my lord,” he said, pulling out the paper.
Leaning against the window, the Metropolitan took it and opened it with burning hands.
There was no hope, said the letter. “The Franks are unwilling to antagonize the Sultan,�
�� he read. “The Sultan, grown bold again, means to withdraw the few privileges he had granted to Crete against his will; the General whom he has sent to occupy it possesses full powers to root out Christianity. Therefore bury your weapons again, practice patience, and do not plunge Greece into a bloody adventure. She is willing, but powerless.”
He read it greedily, then slowly. His lordly head was bowed. At last he tore himself away from the window and dropped, exhausted, to the divan. He buried his face in his hands.
“Unhappy Crete;” he murmured.
At last the Metropolitan raised his head. “Do you know what’s in the letter, Kosmas?” he asked. “I know, my lord.”
“I shall send a letter to all the captains, telling them to lay down their arms. We can’t go on. There’s only one captain I’m afraid ofyour Uncle Michales. An unbridled, rebellious soul. I already sent him one warning that he was to get out with his weapons and flags. No one would hurt a hair of his headthe pasha had sworn it.Do you know how he answered me? ‘Do I meddle in your office, Bishop? Then don’t you meddle in mine either. Never will I kneel before the Turks. I’ll blow myself sky-high!’ You, my Kosmas, must seek him out and speak with him.”
“I’ll go, my lord, but without any hope. He’s like my fathera wild beast.”
Trumpets sounded, and heavy, marching steps and the neighing of horses. The Metropolitan looked at Kosmas anxiously.
“Turkish soldiers,” said Kosmas. “They came on the ship. We took them on at Kanea. They have orders to annihilate everything.”
“Unhappy Crete,” said the Metropolitan again, raising his hand to Heaven. “How long yet?”
Perplexity overcame them both. The Metropolitan, to give their thoughts a new direction, asked: “You’ve been in the land of the Franks for many years. What’s happening there? What have you seen? Here we live in the wilds.”
“Many things, good and bad, my lord! Where am I to begin?”
“Are they believers?”
“They believe in a new godhead, a cruel, great-power one, which may some day become all-powerful.”
“In what?”
“In science.”
“Mind without soul. In the devil, that means.”
“We are now under a terrible sign of the zodiac, that of Scorpioof the devil, my lord.”
“The rest of mankind perhaps. Not we Cretans. We have a higher belief than in the individual, the belief in tears and sacrifice. We are still under the sign of God.”
Kosmas said nothing. What purpose would it serve to speak? The Metropolitan was old and believing. He had no support other than belief.
“Not we Cretans, nor the Russians either,” the Metropolitan went on. “When I was Archimandrite in Kiev, I understood what believing means. What God means, and how He comes down to earth and goes about and speaks with men. As long as Russia exists, I have no fear.”
Kosmas rose. “I shall leave you, Bishop, and let you send the letter to the captains. We must not lose a moment.”
“My blessing! And come again tomorrow. I’m going to call the elders together. You too must speak with them.”
When Kosmas returned at nightfall to his parental house and climbed upstairs to the old bedroom of his youth, he found his wife stretched out on the bed, crying. He took her injiis arms, stroked her hair, touched her chin and raised her troubled face to his. She smiled at him.
“What’s the matter? What have they been doing to you?”
“Nothing, nothing. I’m tired.”
She let her face droop on her arm. Then she said:
“They all sniffed around me. Then they turned away and whispered among themselves. Only your mother had pity on me. She stood up and said, ‘My dears, good-by, we’re tired. See you tomorrow!‘She took me by the hand and led me upstairs into your room. She made a movement as if to kiss me, but she thought better of it. ‘Lie down,’ she said, ‘don’t pay any attention to them. Go to sleep!‘And so I’ve been lying here and waiting for you.”
Kosmas kissed the curly hair on her neck. She closed her eyes, smiling. The moon rose and shone on her face. Kosmas was appalled by her pallor.
“Go to sleep,” he whispered in her ear, “you’re tired.”
She clasped his hand. “I couldn’t, alone. Lie down by my side.”
She put her arms around him, snuggled against his chest and murmured a few tender words in her mother tongue. Then she went to sleep.
The moon climbed higher, huge and dumb, filled with sweetness. It was the moon of his youth, of those honeyed nights when he had carried on weighty conversations with his friends about the great unanswerable questions whence? whither? why?that trouble young men the world over.
The moonlight now spread itself like a white linen sheet over the bed. The honey-golden hair of his wife, spread out on the pillow, gleamed as though it were lighted by glowworms. Her face shone like marble. Kos-mas stretched out his hand to caress her, but drew back for fear of waking her.
How much I love this woman, he thought, is beyond telling. How much good she has brought me is beyond telling. She has opened my mind and heart; she has taught me to love foreign races, which I hated, to understand foreign ideas, which I fought, and to feel that we are all of one origin. What good fate was it that took her by the hand that evening and brought her to me? Smiling, he shook his head. “There’s no such thing as fate. I myself grasped her by the hand that evening, nobody, else.”
And he remembered how he had been in a bookshop in a distant town in the north one day, looking for a book he loved: Chinese poems of the Sung dynasty. He could not find it and as, disappointed, he looked out into the street, he saw a girl in an orange silk blouse passing by. For a second she stood as though in the beam of a searchlightthen she vanished. He was stirred to the depths. The girl seemed to him to have an enigmatic, tragic beauty. And her blouse was of the color he loved above all others.
Like lightning the thoughts flashed through his mind. If I want, I shall run after her, and she’ll become my wife. If I don’t want, I shall stay here and let her go. I do what I want. But what do I want?And he was reminded of the story of the Cretan shepherd who had never seen the great citythat was how he pictured Megalokastro. It had been described to him as Paradise, where the most precious things in the world were displayed: white boots with double soles, guns and sabers, sacks full of beans and salt fish, and musk-scented women. For years his mind had been obsessed with this paradise, for years he had longed to go down to it. One day he could bear it no longer. He slung his old boots over his shoulder, in order not to wear them out on the rocks, and clambered, springing from stone to stone, down to Megalokastro. He traveled for seven hours. Toward evening he reached the big fortress gate of Megalokastro. There he came to a standstill with a sharp jerk. Perhaps he was suddenly ashamed that he had not resisted the temptation. He struck the hard threshold with his shepherd’s staff and cried: “If I want, I’ll go in. If I don’t want, I won’t go -in … I won’t go in!” And he returned to his mountain.
“But I will go in!” muttered Kosmas, and ran after the girl. In the black throng of human beings the orange blouse gleamed. As he caught up with the girl, she turned and looked at him with terror.
“The moment you went by,” he told her, “I thought: If I want, I shall speak to her and we shall become friends. If I don’t want, I shall let her go by. I’ve made up my mind that I do want.”
“Either you’re mad,” the girl answered, glancing anxiously about her, “or a poet. But I’ve no time… .”
“Come with me and let’s talk…”
“I’ve no time. I must go.”
“Where are you going?”
“I must go away,” she insisted, in a voice that trembled.
Kosmas took her by the arm and said tenderly, “Don’t go away. Come with me.” The ring of her voice had frightened him. She had said, “I must go away” as if she were crying “Help!”
The girl’s thick, finely arched eyebrows drew together. At that mome
nt the whole of her life lay in the balance.
“I want” “I don’t want” Her fate was imprisoned in those short syllables.
“Come,” repeated Kosmas. “Where?” “Anywhere.”
“Where?” She spoke like a child who is afraid of being punished.
“Let’s go for a walk. Life is short. Let’s talk, as long as there’s time ….”
She bowed her honey-fair head. “All right, let’s talk, as long as there’s time. Life is short. Let’s go!”
They had gone into a park. Evening had passed from golden green to pale violet, and gradually to dark blue. Both spoke hurriedly, breathing rapidly. Kosmas first, to give her courage. He spoke of Crete, that fearful, beloved island, of his dragon of a father, and of his mother, that holy martyr.
The girl’s bosom swelled. “Why do you speak to me of such things?” she asked anxiously. “Since I’m going away and you too are going away and we’ve no time … People need years to reach the point we have reached at one bound.”
They had sat down on a bench. “What’s your name?” asked the man. “^oemi.”
“Tell me. Noemi, I’m sure your life is hard. Trust me. I’m a Cretan.”
“A Cretan? What’s that?” “A man with a warm heart, Noemi.” It was the depth of night when they stood up. The young man’s heart was overflowing with indignation and bitterness. This little girl had drunk the misery of the whole world. Her words had revealed to him the horror, the shame, the madness of the world. He had listened to her with his face hidden in his hands, and had seen the things she described to him: how the Cossacks had ridden through the town, stormed the Jewish quarter, splintered the doors, killed the young men and rounded up the old, together with the women and children. Her father, he old rabbi with the white, divided beard, had marched in the deep snow at the head of the prisoners. After days and nights in the snow, they had become fewer and fewer. On both sides of the road, women and children were left lying in the snow….
Freedom or Death Page 39