The Fratricides

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  “The fox is caught by his own cunning, my friend,” Stratis replied, looking at Levy with hatred. “Here, look at the writing, look at the signature!”

  Levy took the letter and leaned over the fireplace to scrutinize it. “What? Can this be limping Aleko’s?” he cried. “Then he wasn’t killed? And all the tears I wasted on him! What a pity!”

  Aleko was a brilliant soldier; a cook at Preveza who was also our cook here. He was fat, and he limped, and he had a thick mustache—how many hairs of it we’d swallowed in our soup! He had disappeared over a month ago, and we thought he’d been killed and that the jackals had eaten his carcass. So we divided his belongings—some clothing, socks, sweaters, and four silver spoons he had stolen.

  “Is he alive,” we all shouted, “is he alive?” “Read on, Stratis.” “Where’s he writing from?” “What does he say?” “Eh, the limping son of a gun!”

  “Who’s he writing to?” Levy asked.

  “To no one; to all of us,” Stratis replied. “It’s a circular letter; you’ll see, he says so himself. Eh, Panos, wake up, you old shepherd. Cock your ears, all of you!”

  Stratis walked over to the fire and began to read, and his voice grew deeper.

  Eh, soldiers, you green fools! It’s me, the ghost, Aleko the Limper, writing to you. This isn’t a plain letter, it’s a circular, and I want all of you to read it carefully, because it will open your eyes to the light. It’s been over a month since I escaped the slaughterhouse where they’ve herded you, you poor fools; I’m free, in the hills, with the noble fighters. Don’t sit there like idiots, listening to what those

  evil men tell you; they fill your guts with lies—that we’re starving up here, that we’re killing the prisoners, that we’re befriending the Albanians and the Bulgars. This is the place to be! By the hairs of my mustache—which I fed you all those months—this is where the Greek flag waves! And when we capture a blackhood, he’s free to choose. “You want to join us? Then welcome! You want to leave? Good luck to you!” And as for food—“Chicken every Sunday,” my friends. God bless the Americans who send you ship-loads of canned meats, tea and sugar and marmalades— which we promptly take away from you during the attacks. If it weren’t for the Americans, we’d be in terrible shape. God bless ‘em; Uncle Truman knows what he’s doing. We hear he’s also sending you summer clothing and cannon and automobiles—we can’t wait! Summer’s coming—time for us to get clothed and armed again. By God, I think of you down there, and my heart aches. How much longer, you idiots, are you going to keep fighting and getting killed? Don’t you realize that you’ve lost the game? That you’re the Turks and we’re the guerrillas and rebels and that we’re the ones fighting for freedom? It’s 1821 again, my fellow Turks!

  “It’s always a few,” the captain said to us the other day, “it’s always a few that fight for freedom, and those few al-ways conquer the greater number.” So for your own good I tell you, leave the herd you’ve been rounded up in, as I left it—me, the limper. Jump out, come on! Otherwise you’re lost, you poor souls. I think of you, one by one, and raise my voice in lament. How is that miserable captain, the butcher? And good old Sergeant Menas, the poor slob with the pig’s face? How’s our student, Leonidas, who holds his pen and paper and keeps singing like a snail on burning coals while the world burns? How’s Abramiko, that devil’s disciple? And poor Stratis, that bowlegged half-pint? Eh, you miserable souls, you poor fools, there’s still time. Jump out of the graves, come on up to the hills, where you can drink the immortal water. I write you all this —me, Aleko, the lame-footed, fast-footed one, who escaped from the slaughterhouse—me, the cook with the red hood!

  “That’s it,” Stratis said as he finished reading. “Now let’s talk this over. Let everyone give his opinion—one at a time. If what Aleko says is true …”

  No one spoke; we were all staring at the fire that had settled and was gasping, dying; and our hearts, which had glowed for a while, were dying with it.

  “What is there to discuss, Stratis?” I said to him. “Let’s wait until the words settle in our minds first, before we talk.”

  “Are you afraid?” Stratis asked, with irony in his voice. “Are you afraid they’ll catch you and kill you if you try to leave?”

  “I’m not afraid of getting killed,” I replied, “but I don’t want to be killed for nothing. I don’t quite know yet on whose side the truth is.”

  “And you, unanointed one,” Stratis said to Levy, “don’t you wink at me—I share no secrets with you—speak openly.”

  “I,” Levy said and looked at me mockingly, “I don’t give a penny for truth or lies; there’s no difference, they’re both sluts; they have the same faces. My eyes have seen so much that I hate everything, everything, everything!” He paused and spat in the fire. “There’s only one thing I want,” he continued, “and that’s to stay alive! And I’m alive now, and in my glory, because I’m carrying a rifle and a permit from the authorities to kill! And you know what else I want? I want the war to go on forever—never to end! I don’t give a damn who I kill or for what reason.”

  “You’re a fascist,” Stratis replied angrily. Levy paled.

  “Poor Stratis,” he murmured. “How would you understand?” And he spread his hands over the dying fire.

  We were silent again. I could tell that Stratis wanted to say something; he looked at us, one by one, but he swallowed his words.

  Panos bounded from sleep; he looked at the dying coals, yawned, made the sign of the cross over his mouth, and spoke. “Eh, fellows, now if we only had a pan of cheese pies and then, say, a little jug of honey and a bottle of raki!”

  “And if, say, there was no war,” Vassos added, sighing, “and no sisters to marry off, and we had just climbed the snow-capped hill simply because we were five friends, five hunters, say, and we were hunting not for men, but for wild boar.”

  MARCH 3: There is no greater sadness than being in love and having to part from your beloved; there is no greater joy than being in love and uniting with your beloved. Here, the hours and days and weeks go by, sometimes frantic and full of bloodshed, sometimes weighed down as though they were carrying the dead. And I go on, with time, but my eyes see only you, my love, and I struggle to overcome the separation. I watch the clouds drift toward the north, and I recall the folk songs, the messages and greetings we send with the clouds, the birds, the winds, to the small, warm bodies we love. And the girl sits at her window and watches that cloud; she opens her arms and waits for her beloved to come down to her like the rain.

  Beloved, please become a cloud and a refreshing breeze, Become a gentle gust of rain and fall upon my rooftop.

  MARCH 7: War, still war! The weather is milder now, but instead of our hearts softening, they have become wilder; the rebels come down—we go up—we clash halfway; first with rifles, then with bayonets, then hand to hand. There’s nothing more spine-chilling than to feel the body of the man who wants to kill you up against yours; his breath, the foam and sa-liva from his mouth, his terror merging with yours, and the terrible need to kill him—not because you hate him, but to get him before he gets you. I think there is no greater degradation than killing in fear rather than hate.

  I was grappling with a young blond boy; he had no mustache and was barefoot, but wore shin guards like the ancient Achaeans. He had sunk his teeth in the nape of my neck, but I felt no pain at that moment; I had bent and grabbed him by the waist and struggled to throw him down. We did not utter a sound; all we could hear was our gasping breath and the creaking of our bones. How long did we fight? I only remember how my knees were collapsing, exhausted; the blond boy tried to hold me with one hand as he raised his knife with the other. And suddenly he let out a heart-rending cry and fell to the ground at my feet; a knife which had flashed from behind him pierced his back. A friend had come to my rescue—Stratis? Vassos? Panos? I couldn’t tell who it was; I only heard a

  voice say, “Courage, Leonidas!” And I saw the knife gleam; I was on the ground, too, and the
blood ran from my shoulder; I was in pain.

  When we returned to camp—it was night by that time—Vas-sos approached me. “Did you see that?” he said. “I fixed him all right; you know, you missed death by the skin of your teeth.”

  We had taken three prisoners; one was the blond boy with the knife wound in his back; the others were two giants who had entered the battle armed only with clubs, in hopes of getting rifles from the men they would kill. Two other soldiers and I were ordered to guard the prisoners at night. We gave them each a bowl of boiled beans and a piece of dry bread; the two men lunged at the food and ate it like hungry dogs, spreading out on the ground. The blond boy was in pain; he was losing blood; he couldn’t eat a thing. I began a conversation with him.

  “Where are you from, friend? What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “From Paramythia in Epirus. I’m Nicolo, the widow’s son, if you’ve heard of me.”

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “No, comrade, how would I know you?”

  “Weren’t you and I grappling together earlier this evening, and weren’t your teeth sunk in my neck? What did I ever do to you?”

  “Me? Why should I have anything against you? I never saw you before—how would I ever know you? What do you have against me?”

  “Nothing, nothing …”

  “Well, then?” he asked, and his eyes grew wide, as though he were just seeing the light. “Well, then, why did we want to kill each other?”

  I didn’t answer; I went closer. “Does it hurt?” I asked.

  “Yes, it does! What’s your name?”

  “Leonidas.”

  “It hurts, Leonidas, it hurts a lot; what are they going to do with me now? They going to kill me?”

  “Don’t worry, Nicolo, we don’t kill prisoners, either.”

  “But suppose they decide to kill me, will you help me, will

  you defend me, Leonidas? You’re the only one I can trust—I don’t have anyone else here. Will you defend me? We’re friends aren’t we, Leonidas?”

  “Don’t worry, Nicolo, I’ll do everything I can,” I said and my face flushed with shame.

  But what power do I have? How can I, a plain soldier, a student, stand before the captain and demand that they spare Nicolo? I suddenly remembered the dream I wrote you about, the one I had several weeks ago—that little fish that was complaining to God, that was crying out, “You should give strength to those who are in the right, and not to the unjust! That’s the true meaning of God!” I see now, alas, that I was that little fish!

  MARCH 8: This morning they executed all three of them. As they lined the prisoners up against the wall, the wounded boy turned and looked at me; how will I ever forget that look? He was waiting for me to intervene, to go to the captain and de-fend him and perhaps save his life. And I just stood there, motionless, silent, trembling from indignation and pain. Nicolo, the widow’s son, looked at me with such disappointment and grief that my heart seemed to tear to pieces. I closed my eyes so I would not see him.

  The sergeant came around to select the squad for the execution; my knees trembled—what if he chose me? What if he said again, “Come here, Leonidas, my young student-teacher, come get some experience so you won’t be afraid of blood!” What would I do? Would I throw the rifle down and shout, “Kill me, too, I can’t stand it any longer”? No, no, I wouldn’t have had the strength; I would have obeyed, because of you, Maria, because I want to see you again, to touch you again. I’ve done many cowardly things here, because of you, my beloved; and I’ve done many heroic things, again, because of you. You’re, the one who guides my mind and my every deed now.

  Thank God, the captain passed me by without calling my name. He chose three others; I closed my eyes as the shots rang out and I heard the three bodies falling with a thump on the snow. I opened my eyes. Nicolo, the widow’s son, had rolled over; his blond head was buried in the red snow.

  MARCH 12: I’ve had a fever for three days now, and all that time my friend Stratis nursed me. I was happy for three days, because I did not know where I was. I had forgotten that they had dragged me into these wild hills to fight, and I thought, in my fever, that I was home in Naxos—my beloved island. And I was not alone; we were together. Stratis tells me I was ranting, that I kept calling your name, that I laughed. It seems we had both received our diplomas, and I had taken you to the island to meet my parents. “This is my wife,” I told them, “this is my wife; give us your blessing.”

  We disembarked at the humble little port; it smelled of rotting lemons and citron, and before we went to my father’s home, I took you past the rocks beside the bay, where that stately marble door stood, the only remains of the Temple of Dionysus. When the god of wine kidnaped Ariadne, he brought her here to this rock and they first loved here. We sat on the fallen marble, and I put my arm around your waist. I don’t remember what I said to you, I only remember, in my fever, that I felt that I was truly a god. I was overcome with a sweet, godly drunkenness, and I felt that the whole world was sinking, except for this rock which rose above the waves, solid, unmoving, eternal. And both of us were on it, and I was holding you in my arms, and we looked at the calm, wide sea with such happiness. God had come down to earth again, the daughter of King Minos had risen from the soil of Crete. They found themselves embracing on this same rock. Nothing had changed, except their names; Dionysus had be-come Leonidas, and Ariadne was now Maria.

  And later—was it later or that same moment?—we found ourselves in my grandfather’s garden in a beautiful little village— Egares—covered with greenery, an hour from the city. My arm was still around your waist, and we walked under the trees. There were so many of them—orange trees, peach trees, apple trees—all laden with fruit. And it was noon, and two butterflies as large as my palm flew by and came and sat on your head and then flew on ahead and led the way, like angels. And every so often they would turn and look our way, to see if we were following; then they would turn back and lead us again.

  “Where are they taking us?” you asked, disturbed, and your arm tightened about me.

  And I laughed. “Don’t you know?” I replied.

  “No.”

  “To Paradise.”

  For three days and three nights I stayed in Paradise; what happiness that was, what serenity, what gentle, cool reliefl Love must be like this—death must be like this.

  But my fever dropped today; I opened my eyes, looked around me; soldiers, rifles, bayonets. Stratis was bending over me, watching me with gentle concern.

  MARCH 12: I still can’t get up, even today; I feel a sweet exhaustion. I can’t hold a rifle in my hands yet, let the captain say what he may. The others set out for their work at daybreak; the hillsides echo with rifleshots and mortar. Here and there the litters arrive with the wounded, and the corridor is filled with moans. But I am so sweetly exhausted that all this seems like a dream to me, and it does not weigh upon me. Those around me cry and moan with pain, but I think only of you, my love, of you and poetry. And all day, in this dirty corridor, the four lines of Plato—the verse we loved so much—flutter over my head, Maria my beloved, like those large butterflies I Saw in my fever:

  Love, I send a message with this apple, Accept it if you will, giving virginity in return; Should you refuse, then keep the apple, But remember how swiftly beauty fades away.

  MARCH 18: A woman with a red kerchief on her head has been sneaking around here lately; she hides and appears, and when we go out to chase her away, she’s gone. But every time she’s been around, we get word that something has happened— a truck blown up, a bridge demolished, two or three of our soldiers killed. And every night, and sometimes even during the day—around noon—a clear young voice echoes on the hillside. Some young boy, shouting through a megaphone, calls out, “Brothers, unite! Brothers, unite!” Panos, that innocent shepherd, gets terrified; he keeps making the sign of the cross and murmuring, “That’s no human voice! It’s the trumpet of the Angel. The Second Coming is here!” And we smile halfheart-
edly and tease him. “Who do you suppose that woman with the

  red kerchief is, Panos, boy?” we ask him. “It may be the Virgin,” he replies, hesitating, and makes the sign of the cross again.

  “Does the Virgin kill men, you idiot? Does she carry hand grenades? Does she set dynamite to bridges? What are you trying to tell us, Panos? Don’t be a sacrilegious fool.”

  Panos scratches his head, confused. “How do I know, fellows,” he murmurs. “I don’t know what to say. She’s the Virgin —she has the power to do anything she wants.”

  “I say she’s the devil’s mother,” Levy adds, to antagonize him.

  “She might be at that, it just might be …” Panos replies. “Anything’s possible. As for me, there’s only one thing I’m sure of.”

  “What’s that, old prophet?”

  Panos lowers his voice. “That we’ve all gone to the devil.”

  Stratis jumps up; he’s everywhere, never misses a thing; he needles the soldiers and we call him horsefly, needier, a general alarm.

  “Then why don’t you join the rebels, stupid?” we shout at him.

  “Because the devil’s taken them, too,” Panos replies.

  “And hasn’t God taken anybody? Or didn’t He get there in time?”

  “How could He? He’s been sleeping.”

  We all roared with laughter. “Now be sensible, Panos, does God ever sleep?” I ask him.

  “But of course He does; haven’t you heard? What have they been teaching you, anyway? Sure He sleeps. And when God sleeps, the devil’s wide awake—that’s when he gets the chance to do whatever he pleases. Each one does sentry duty; when the devil sleeps, God is awake and He does as He pleases. These days God is sleeping, and that’s why the devil’s taken us all!”

  MARCH 25: A warm breeze is blowing; blades of grass have sprouted in my mind, and I feel anemones blossoming inside of me. Today being our national holiday, the captain made a speech; he hung a map of Greece on the wall of our barracks and, showing us the borders on the north, explained how and why the rebels want to give Northern Epirus and Macedonia to