The girls brought scent and splashed it over the old men. They brought rose-vinegar for them to sniff, to sober them up. They supported them and brought them over to the grandfather. One of the captains stood on his right, the other on his left; the schoolmaster crouched in front of him, cross-legged.
Old Sefakas opened his arms and greeted the leaders, as if he were seeing them for the first time.
“Captain Mandakas, renowned leader in fighting on dry land; Captain Katsirmas, relentless corsair on the high seas; and you, Captain Schoolmaster, who also have battled among our shadows and composed the papers of the revolt and written what had to be written to the Turks and Franksa thousand times welcome to my poor house!”
“Our greetings to you, Captain Sefakas,” answered the three, their hands on their breasts.
Old Sefakas breathed heavily and drank a gulp of water from the cup. Then he began again:
“Brothers, do you still remember how, at every rising, we captains gathered under an oak tree or in some monastery, and took oaths and kissed one another, because we were going out to meet death? Such a gathering is this, now, under old Sefakas’ lemon tree! Know that for days and days I have been on the point of taking leave of you, but still I don’t go. I’ve made confession and communion, but I don’t go. I’m not going, captains, before we four old ones have talked together. This too is a sort of rising. Brothers, what are we going to decide? Do you hear what I say? Are your minds clear? Can you hear and speak? Or am I wasting my words?”
“We can hear and speak!” said the three.
“Then hear me! I am a hundred years old. You, all of you, know my life, I’ve no need to make a written paper of it for you. That I’ve fought and worked, that I’ve had joy and sorrow, that I’ve done my duty as a man, you can all bear witness. Now my hour has come. The earth is opening, she wants, it seems, to swallow me. Let her swallow me, let her take her revenge! But she’s not swallowing all of me! Look what I’m leaving behind!”
He pointed to his daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and great-grandchildren.
“A whole people! So I’m not worried about death. I’ve beaten him. The devil’s got the best of him. Different anxieties are devouring me… .”
With a sigh he paused. Then, in a voice that for the first time trembled, he said: “For a long time now I’ve een unable to sleep, captains. A worm is gnawing at me.”
He looked intently at the captains, and raised his voice. “Do you hear what I’m saying? Pay attention! Your eyes have gone dim, schoolmaster!”
“We’re listening,” the schoolmaster retorted harshly. “What worm?”
“A worm is gnawing at me, brothers! I look back at my life. I look forward at my death. And I think and think. Where do we come from, children, and where are we going? That is the worm that’s gnawing at me!”
The three captains were agitated by his words. The schoolmaster scratched his pointed, bald head and started to reply, but thought better of it. He had no answer to give.
“Has this thing never come into your minds?” asked the graybeard. “Has this worm never bitten you?” “Never,” answered the three.
“Nor me either, all my life, God is my witness. But lately I’ve not been able to sleep at night. To whom was I to tell what I was suffering? Those of my children who are still with me are youngfifteen, sixteen years old. Their brains are not firm enough. What would they be able to understand? Kostaros, my firstborn sonhe’d now “be over seventy and would begin to understand. But he was turned to ashes at Arkadi. So I decided: Call a meeting, send for the companions of your youth and have a word with them. Like ears of corn at harvest time are your minds, captainsfull of seed. You have surely scented something. Speak! Open your hearts. You’ve been drinking wine, so they’ll open easily. Forward! Let us consult together, children! I don’t want to die a blind man. You speak first, Captain Mandakas. Next to me you’re the eldest. How old were you in 1821?”
“Twenty-two, brother Sefakas. Have you forgotten?” “I was thirty, just over. I’m eight years ahead of you. You begin. Speak. You’ve lived and worn a belt for so many years now. What have you learned?”
Captain Mandakas thoughtfully stroked his thick beard.
“Is it for this you’ve called us, Captain Sefakas?” he said at last. “These are questions difficult to answer. You’re making us pay very heavily for the wine and meat you’ve set before us. What do you think, schoolmaster?”
“Let the schoolmaster alone!” shouted the old man, “and speak to me. Have you come to understand anything in all the years you’ve lived? Don’t turn and twist about! Speak out boldly, like a man!”
Captain Mandakas pulled a tobacco box from his belt and rolled himself a cigarette.
“You put the knife to my throat, old Sefakas,” he said. “What am I to say to you? How am I to begin? I’ve lived the whole of my life as a blind man, just as you say about yourself, and I don’t regret it. Blindly I’ve gone to war, and hurled myself upon the Turks. I married blindly, I begot children blindly, and went to church and lighted candles and kneeled before the icons. Blindly I’ve sowed, harvested, threshed and eaten my bread. I never asked myself why I ate, why I prayed, why I killed. And now, since you ask mestop, Captain Sefakas, if you believe in God! Give me a chance to squeeze my brain until a drop comes out.”
“AH right, I’ll be patient. Squeeze your brain, Captain Mandakas,” said the grandfather, folding his arms.
Captain Mandakas called to his foster son, who was standing behind him. “Hey, Janakos, bring me my sack!”
All waited in silence. The grandfather beckoned to Kosmas. “Get a stool and sit down and listen. Do you understand what we’re saying?”
“I understand, Granddad,” answered Kosmas as he sat.
Janakos brought the sack and put it down in front of his foster father. Old Mandakas fumbled in it and brought out a wide-mouthed glass jar sheathed in leather.
“What have you got in the jar?” asked the grandfather, peering.
Captain Mandakas laughed. T
“Is that your answer?” the other asked furiously. “Other people,” Captain Mandakas replied, “take bread, wine and meat in their sacks when they go on a journey. I too take them, but I take this jar as well.” “What’s inside? I can’t make it out.” Captain Mandakas raised the glinting jar close to the eyes of old Sefakas. The last light of day fell on it, and it gleamed red.
“Can you still see nothing?” asked Captain Mandakas, turning the bottle around.
“Bits of meat,” answered the grandfather, “swimming in water.”
“Those aren’t bits of meat, old Sefakas, they’re ears. It isn’t water, it’s spirits. On the day in the year 1821 when a Turk bore down on me and bit off one of my ears, I took an oath: every Turk I slew, I’d cut off one of his ears and keep it in a bottle. To tell you the story of my life, Captain Sefakas, all I need is to look at one ear after another preserved in spirits and to tell you whose it was. This one here at the bottom of the jarthe hairy onebelonged to that terrible hunter of Christians, Ali Bey. He had killed my brother Panajis and then retired to his estate at Rethymno to hold a feast of celebration with his harem. That evening I went and sat in the Turkish coffeehouse and smoked my narghile. ‘Bring me a bit of charcoal,’ I said to the Turk who made the coffee, ‘my narghile’s going out.’ I quickly folded up the mouthpiece of the narghile and ran out. With wings on my feet I dashed over the fields to Ah’ Bey’s estate. I ran upstairs to his bedchamber where he lay in bed with his hanum, fell upon him, cut off his head, took the ear with me and wrapped it in my kerchief. I got back to the coffeehouse just as the waiter was bringing me the charcoal. I unrolled the mouthpiece and went on smoking. No one had noticed my absence. Next day, when the news of Ali Bey’s death spread, the pasha yelled, ‘It was Mandakas!’ But the Turks from the coffeehouse swore: ‘Captain Mandakas was smoking his narghile in Hassan’s coffeehouse the whole evening.’”
He pointed to another ear. “This th
ick, dark one with the ring in it comes off a Moor. Remadan, his name was. Another gobbler of Christians, may his bones soak in pitch! I ran into him one evening alone on the beach at Trypiti, outside Megalokastro. ‘Remadan,’ I asked him, ‘have you no fear of God?’ ‘He’s afraid of me,’ the dog answered, ‘for I’m Remadan!’ ‘And I’m Mandakas,’ I said, drawing my knife. ‘Draw your knife, you too!’ ‘I haven’t got it with me. You’ve come upon me unarmed, giaour.’ ‘I’ve got two. Choose!’ I threw him the one he chose, and he brandished it in the air. The fight on the pebbles of the seashore began. We fought and fought, until night broke in on us. Blood was streaming over us, the sweat was flowing, we were boiling. We went into the sea, to cool ourselves. It turned red. We didn’t speak, we bellowed. A friend of the Moor’s came by. The blackguard wanted to help him. Til spit you like a sardine,’ the Moor shouted at him. ‘You let us alone and clear out!’ ‘Hey, Remadan,’ I said, ‘you’re a palikar.’ ‘So are you,’ he answered. ‘We’re two wild beasts.’ ‘Then one of us has got to be killed!’ I yelled and went for him again. He flagged. I sprang astride his neck and plunged my knife through his windpipe, as you slaughter a suckling pig. I took his ear, ring and all. Here it is!”
The memory of his heroic deeds was warming him up, and he went on:
“This ear, the one beginning to turn green, belonged to that butcher Mustapha; this one, here in the middle, to an Albanian; the torn one, there, to an imam. Damn him, he had a voice like a bell. Pity! I ought to have cut out his tongue and preserved that in spirits. Next to it, this little one, rounded like a sea shell, comes off Pertef Effendi. The shameless fellow, handsome as a picture, looked like Saint George! How could I help it? He used to ride through the Christian quarter and seduce our women. None of them could resist the dog. I was sorry for them, and one night I forced my way into his house. We fought in his bedroom. But he was very delicately built and used to women, and didn’t put up much resistance. So I cut through that delicate neck of his and took this rounded ear.
“This glass jar contains all the risings of Crete! I couldn’t collect the ears of the ones I killed in battle. But here are the risings of 1821, ‘34, ‘41, ‘54, ‘78. Now I’ve grown old. The last rising has brought hi no ear! Truly I was a wild beast, I did terrible things, God forgive me. Whenever a rising broke out, I left my house, my children, my unpruned vines, my unplowed fields, and rode to join my leader, Captain Korax(*Raven).”
As he remembered that famous name, he suddenly sighed. “Never will so mighty a man rise in the world again. What are we, compared to him? Figures of fun! No one ever joked in front of him, or heard him laugh. His eyes -were round, dark and wild, like eagle’s eyes. He had no faults. He didn’t drink, didn’t curse, didn’t run after women. When he went out to battle he plowed his mare with his heels and swooped down on the Turks. He never turned to see if anyone was following him. He never looked ahead to count the Turkish fezzes. No bullet touched him. That was not a man. No, God forgive me, that was an archangel.”
He sighed again. “Only the wings were missing!”
Old Sefakas listened patiently as he fidgeted nervously on “bis cushions, and sniffed the lemon leaves. At last he could bear it no longer and cried angrily, “Put that jar in your sack, Captain Mandakas! There’s no limit to the wild-beast ways of men. Answer my question: What have you learned with all these years? Where have you arrived? Since you can now see your life in that glass jar, tell me: Has your course been the right one, or do you regret what you’ve done?”
“Regret it!” bawled Captain Mandakas, incensed. “No! If I had to begin all over again, old Sefakas, I’d marry the same wife, beget the same children, kill the same Turksperhaps even more!wear the same breeches, the same belt, the same boots! Not a hair would I change.
And if I go before God tomorrow, I shall tnke my jar under my arm and say to Him: ‘Either You let me into Paradise with this jar, or I won’t go in at all!’ “
“Was that what you were born for?” old Sefakas shouted, “to kill? Was that why God sent you into the world?”
“No, don’t twist my words, old Sefakas. I’m not bloodthirsty. No, I don’t kill for the sake of killing. But…”
He scratched the top of his skull reflectively. Suddenly he shouted:
“But I was fighting for freedom!”
His brow cleared. “Yes,” he said, “you ask me where we come from and where we’re going. When I began speaking, I didn’t know what answer I should give you. But while we’ve been talking this way and that, my brain’s become clear. We’re coming out of slavery, Captain Sefakas, and going into freedom. As slaves we were born, and have fought all our lives to become free. And we Cretans can only become free through killing. That’s why I killed those Turks. That’s it! You asked; I’ve answered you. Now I’m old: I’ve put away my dagger and folded my arms. Charos can come!”
He called to his foster son. “Janakos, put the sack where it belongs.”
“Those were sound words,” cried the grandfather. “Blessings on your tongue, blessings on your hands, Captain Mandakas! You were a long time about^ it, but you’ve understood. You have found your way. You’ve reached the end and done your duty. But do you believe there’s only one way? Others are possible, as you’ll see. You speak now, Captain Katsirmas, you corsairit’s your turn!”
The sea wolf clenched his fists; his squinting eyes grew red.
“I don’t like the way you’re treating us at all, old Sefakas,” he said. “You’ve made us come here and just because you’re a few years older you demand a reckoning from us. No, I’m not saying anything!”
“Don’t flare up, you stubborn idiot,” cried the grand-h father. “No, it’s not because I’m older, but because I’m going under the earth first and I’ve no time to lose. I don’t want to die blind. I’m asking for help, children, for light! Don’t you understand, Captain Katsirmas?”
“Yes,” he answered. “You needn’t yell. But you’re not a ship in danger, which I can come and rescue in my boat. All my life I’ve struggled with the sea. That’s the only place I know my way about. I can’t help anywhere else. So what do you expect from me?““I’m drowning, old corsair,” roared the grandfather. “And a drowning man has to be caught by the hair!”
“Your hair, old Sefakas, not ours! You are standing on the threshold of Hades, and fear comes over you. You call it a worm, I call it fear. So you summon your old comrades: ‘What is this, children? Where am I going? Where am I being taken?’ How should we know anything that could comfort you? We live haphazardly, we die haphazardly, rudderless, with sails bellying. A wind blows. Where it blows, there we go. Water rushes into our ship, we work at the pumps day and night. But the water keeps rising and the pumps are rusty. The wretched things won’t work any more, and we go to the bottom. That’s human life, and you can yell as loud as you like. What’s our duty? To serve the pumps day and night, not to fold our arms, not to complain, not to moan. We ought not to give up shamefully, but to work at the pumps day and night. That much I’ve learned from life, and you can take it or leave it!”
He turned his savage face to Captain Mandakas. “I wasn’t like you, sir, nailed to the land, with blinkers before your eyes, so you could see nothing but Turks and Christiansand kill Turks and cut off their ears and pickle them in spirits. I can’t bring a glass jar out of my sack and show it around and say: “That is my life.’ I’ve made voyages, Captain Mandakas, I’ve seen the whole world. I’ve slept with women of all kinds, I’ve pushed far down into Africa, where the bread is toasted by the sun. I’ve been in great harbors and little ones, I’ve seen millions of black men, millions of yellow menmy eyes ave brimmed over with them! At first I thought they all stank. I said: ‘Only Cretans smell good; and of the Cretans only the Christians.’ But slowly, slowly, I got used to their stink. I foundI found that we all smell good and stink in the same way. Curse us all!
“And then I threw myself into piracy. I found out that the world is made up of copper k
ettles and clay jugs, banging against each other. Be of copper, Katsirmas, you wretch, or else you’ll go to pieces! I said to myself. And if you get broken, you’ll never be stuck together again: it’s finished. So I made friends with some Algerians; we hoisted black flags, lay in wait, fell upon trading ships, killed, plundered, fled and hid our booty on deserted islands. And onceyou all remember itI unloaded at Grabusa a shipload of cinnamon, cloves and musk-nuts, so that the whole of Crete had a sweet scent. Have you forgotten, old Sefakas? I even sent a sackful of cloves and cinnamon to Your Grace.”
“Go on,” said the ancient. “Come to some conclusion. What does all that amount to?”
“It’s to show you what you’ve got to understand. We feared neither God nor man. I was a Christian, they were Mussulmans. But we let no ship through, whether she was bound for Mecca or for Jerusalem. We set upon her and killed the pilgrims. I was a wild beast among wild beasts. Like the Algerians I grew a pigtail and had the rest of my head shorn. I collected a mass of thaler, ducats and Turkish money. I robbed each ship of two or three women, enjoyed them and threw them into the sea. I was a beast, I tell you, worse than you, Captain Mandakas! And if you ask me, Captain Sefakas, whether I regret it, then here’s my answer: I’ve lived my life well and soundly, and like a palikar, I don’t regret it. God made me a wolf and I eat lambs. If He’d made me a lamb, the wolf would have eaten me, and rightly! That’s the order of things. Is it my fault? It’s the fault of Him Who made wolves and lambs.”
For a moment he squinted at his companions in silence, as though he expected an answer.. But none was , forthcoming. So he went on:
“And now, captains, I’m old. The timbers have sprung, the hold’s splitting apart, water’s rushing in, the pumps are working badly. And so I’ve slunk onto dry land, and adopted good manners. I play the part of a human being. Why? I can’t do anything else now. My strength’s gone. My hair and teeth have fallen out. The wolfs grown mangy and lousy. I act like a human being. I’ve sunk to that. I don’t kill any more, I don’t howl, I bleat like a lamb. When I sit at the village fountain and watch the girls filling their pitchers, my eyes eat the fish, but my belly remains empty. Often I find myself in tears. ‘Why are you crying, Granddad?’ the girls ask me, and giggle, ‘Because I’ve got toTJie, damn you, and leave such beautiful bodies behind on earth.’ By God, if I were King or Ali Pasha, I’d collect for myself a band of the loveliest girls and have them slaughtered on my tomb, to take them with me.”
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