they had the written laws, from the time of their ancestors, and they obeyed these laws. They knew exactly what was good, what was bad, what was honorable, what was dishonorable; for they had the Ten Commandments as their guide. Whoever followed these got on well in society; whoever broke them was a rebel, an upstart against society; and society became angry, confused, and felt its foundations shaken. So it grabbed the irregular verb and said, ‘So you refuse to be conjugated like the rest of us, in the regular way? Then down you go!’ “
“Ah, so that’s how it is,” Stelianos said, and rubbed his ear, which still pained him. “But, then, who’s right? I’m confused, Kyriákos old friend. Can one person fight the world? Can you take a holy tradition that was handed down from your parents and turn around and say you don’t like it? Would it be proper for you to come into my house and say to me, ‘I don’t like your loomit’s no good,’ and then take an ax and hack it to pieces? Why, this loom was handed down to me by my parents and my grandparents; this is the way they taught me to weave and earn my bread, and then you came along …”
“Christ is right!” The coppersmith jumped up shouting. “Why not? What are we, stagnated water in a pool? The world moves, it’s a living thing, men, it grows; it wore one type of clothing as a baby, but it wears different clothes when it grows up; it discards the diapers and bibs, and puts on trousers. It leaves its mother and father, and builds its own home. And it’s only natural. All right, I’m not saying diapers and bibs are no goodbut they’re for babies. Christ is the first man who realized He was no longer a baby, that the old laws, the bibs and diapers, no longer fit. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Do you understand?” replied the old landowner who had become enraged. “What school taught you that nonsense, or did you learn it all in your tinker shop?”
“Never mind, you old miser, with your money and your farms,” the coppersmith answered in an angered breath, “but don’t worry, iron bends when it’s placed in the fire; and you’ll bend, too, you’ll see. That, for your information, is what I learned in my tinker shop.”
Pleased at hearing this, Kyriákos jumped up. “And that fire is Christ!” he shouted.
“So, that’s it,” old Mandras said and looked at the coppersmith through narrowed eyes. “Now I see why they call you a bolshevik.”
Andreas laughed. “They won’t call me a bolshevik any longer; they’ll call me an irregular verb! God bless Kyriákos for showing me the light.”
Old Hadjis, who still sat on the ledge, looked through dim eyes at his fellow villagers who were shouting and gesturing; he could not understand what the commotion was all about. He could not hear; only a sound reached his brain, like that of turtles fighting and clashing shells.
“What’s going on, friends?” he asked every now and then, his’saliva running down his chin.
He would be silent, and then again: “What’s going on, men?” But no one bothered to reply.
Finally Panágos the barber, tired of listening to him, walked over and boomed in his ear: “They say they want to open up your coffers, old man! Open up your coffers, you hear? They want to see how much money you’ve got hoarded away.”
The old man’s arms and legs went limp; his flesh almost jumped out of its skin.
“Eh? Who? Who do you say?” he managed to gasp, and saliva rained on his shirtfront.
“The poor!” the barber shouted in his ear, “the poor people, the hungry, the shoeless!”
The old landowner giggled; his heart settled back in its place.
“The poor?” he replied. “The hell they will! There’s a God in heaven!”
The barber leaned over the old man and shouted in his ear again. “But the poor have a God, too, and He’s barefooted, too, and He’s hungry; and He keeps a record, they say, and marks a red cross alongside the name of every wealthy man. And they say He’s marked a red cross beside your name, too, Hadjis!”
The old man began to tremble again; he tried to speak, but his tongue became twisted.
Stelianos, feeling sorry for Hadjis, turned to the barber. “Leave the old man alone before he has a stroke,” he said.
Old Mandras was furious. “You lousy barber,” he shouted, “who canonizes these blasphemies you spout? Is it the teacher? Or is it that priest with the red cap?”
“It’s not the teacher, Mandras, nor is it Father Yánaros,” the barber replied, and his eyes dimmed. “A three-year-old child told mea three-year-old child that I saw die of hunger.”
“What child, you idiot?”
“My child.”
Silence fell over the men. Indeed, just the other day, Panágos’ child had died of hunger; months ago Panágos had closed his barber shop because the villagers had no moneythey let their hair and beards grow long.
And while everyone remained silent, ashamed, as though they had killed that child themselves, Mathios the coachman arrived, panting and flushed.
“We’re going to the devil, thank God!” he shouted happily when he saw his fellow villagers. “They say we’re out of ammunition and that the redhoods found it out and will be com-ing down the hill any moment, to burn us, to slaughter us, to put us out of our misery.”
He rubbed his hands with pleasure as he talked.
Poor Mathios, who loved food! He had nothing to eat now; he loved to drink, too, but he had nothing to drink, either; he loved women, but he was poor and ugly, and no woman would even look at him. So he turned against the world: “The devil take it all; since I’m not rich, no one else should be rich; since I have nothing to eat, no one else should have anything to eat, either; that’s the real meaning of God and justice.”
Old Mandras raised his staff in anger. “Bite your tongue, you dirty barefooted bastard! If God listened to the vultures, no one would be left alive!” he shouted and rushed at Mathios.
But the coppersmith grabbed him by the arm. “The tables turn, Mandras old man,” he said. “Don’t be angry; the wheel keeps turning, and things go round and round; the poor will be-come rich, the rich will become poor, and the sword will cut them all downrich and poor alike. Remember the monk who brought the Holy Sash the other day? Remember what he shouted as he passed the barracks? ‘Kill, my children, kill and become sanctified!’ That’s what he cried; so we kill!”
“The monk said to kill the reds, not the honest people,” replied the elder.
Andreas laughed. “Don’t worry, my honest friend, I am certain that there is another monk who travels and preaches to the
rebels, too, and shouts, ‘Kill! Kill the blackhoods, kill the hon-est people, and you will be sanctified!’ So they, too, kill. And so Mathios must be right, the devil’s taken all of us.”
Mathios could not remain silent. “Eh, my honest friend, I’ll tell you an old proverb, but don’t take it personally. Satan takes half of all the things that are earned honestly, and he takes all of the things earned dishonestly, including the owner, too! You’re going to end up with nothing, because I think the devil will take you very soon, you old chiseler.” With that, he turned, and with a leap was out of the courtyard. Hadjis’ staff crashed against the wall, crumbling the whitewash.
At that moment, Father Yánaros appeared at the door of his cell. He had heard the shouting in the courtyard, but his mind had been absorbed with the Passions of Christ and the passions of man; he was struggling to find some solution, but could find nothing; and he would look first at the carving of the Second Coming by his martyred friend Arsénios, then at the icon of St. Constantine, the firewalker.
Ah, he thought, if only man could walk on lighted coals and dance over them! Oh, to walk on this earth and not be overcome with despair, with fear, or blasphemy!
He looked at the icon of the firewalker, and as he watched, logic seemed to fortify itself within him. “God is not cool water no, He’s not cool water to be drunk for refreshment; God is fire, and you must walk upon it; not only walk, butmost difficult of allyou must dance on this fire. And the moment you are able t
o dance on it, the fire will become cool water; but until you reach that point, what a struggle, my Lord, what agony!”
He rose; all morning he had been decorating the Holy Bier with the wildflowers they had brought him from Prastova; he took Christ down from the cross, laid Him on the wildflowers, leaned over, and kissed His bloodied feet, His bloodied hands, His sides from where the white and red paint ran. “There now, be patient, my Son,” Father Yánaros told Him. “It’s nothing, don’t despair. You’re God, You will be resurrected; sleep now.”
But here, alone in his cell, the voices woke within him, ask-ing questions but receiving no reply; Father Yánaros rose, disturbed. He finally made a decision. “I’ll go to church,” he said to himself. “I am burdened with heavy cares; I must find out what
to do; my village is in danger; my soul is in danger. He must give me an answerwhether to go to the right or to the left I want a response. In the name of Goda response!”
He made the sign of the cross, and, with head and feet bare, he crossed the threshold of his cell. His face clouded with worry, and the blood rushed to his head.
“The pot’s boiling,” Stelianos the weaver murmured when he saw Father Yánaros approaching. “Be careful, men!”
They stepped back, making room for him to pass; Father Yd-naros did not even turn to look at them; his eyes were focused on God, and in the brilliant light, he could see no one else.
“What news do you have, Father?” asked the coppersmith. “Hasn’t the knife cut into the bone yet?”
“I’m going to talk with God; I want no words with men right now.”
“Don’t go getting us into any more trouble, priest,” old Mandras said, looking at Father Yánaros with hatred. “Your eyes are full of treason.”
“My eyes are full of dying children; leave me alone.”
“I’m not afraid of anyone in this village,” the elder said, “ex-cept you, Father Yánaros.”
“I’m afraid of you, too, Mandras, but for now, forget your own miserable welfare and think of the village.”
“My welfare and the welfare of the village are one and the same; what have you plotted this time, Father Yánaros? You put anything that suits you into God’s mouth and then you come out in the pulpit and say, ‘God told me this, God told me that.’ Eh, Father Yánaros, did God tell you that, or did you tell it to God yourself, you impostor?”
“What are they saying, eh? What are they saying?” shrieked old Hadjis, and he rubbed his aching knees.
But no one answered him; all of them had fixed their eyes on the two heads of the village, who were in the midst of this argument.
“A priest is the voice of God on earth,” Father Yánaros said and gestured for the elder to step back so he could pass. “Don’t chastise yourself, you damned old man! You’ve done enough to the women and children of this town!”
The old miser opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as the
neighing of a horse was heard behind them; they turned to see the captain whipping his gray horse as he rode toward them. Seeing the villagers gathered around the priest, he coiled like a snake ready to spring. The traitor’s plotting something, he thought, and he sprang toward them, cracking his whip in the air with fury.
“Bulgars, bolsheviks, traitors!” he snarled, turning his horse first to one side, then to the other; it foamed at the mouth, like its master. Everyone scattered; only Father Yánaros remained by the ledge of the church.
“I’m going to hang you upside down, you scoundrel! Why are you rounding up the people? What are you instigating?”
“I pity you, Captain,” Father Yánaros replied in a quiet, austere voice, “I pity you; your heart is filled with poison, and you want to contaminate the world; but there’s a God in heaven.”
With that he seized the horse’s bridle. The captain leaned over, glared at him, and bile rushed to his eyes.
“Scoundrel!” he snarled again and raised his whip.
The priest merely looked at him; his face filled with compassion and bitterness.
“My son,” he said softly, “are you still human? Do you ever think of your mother? May I talk to you?”
The captain was confused; the blood drained from his face; a flash of lightning closed his eyes, and everything disappeared; only a humble village house remained, trembling in the air. And at the threshold stood a bent, smiling little old woman brightly dressed in the clothes she had worn as a bridethe clothes she would wear when she died; she was waiting for her son. In the lightning flash the captain saw clearly the wrinkles on her face; he saw her eyes that were filled with such patience and softness, and her withered lips. And suddenly everything disappeared againthe threshold, the house, his elderly mother. The captain opened his eyes and saw Father Yánaros before him.
“What do you want?” he growled. “Didn’t I tell you not to look at me like that? Get away from me!”
“My son, if you would only be patient and listen to me,” Father Yánaros said and, still holding the bridle, he looked at the captain with compassion.
“Speak up then, what do you want?”
“My son, this is a terrible moment; your whole life will be judged by it. If you are a real man, this moment will prove it; your children and your grandchildren will judge you on how you act now. God will judge youdo you hear me?”
“Go on, go on, I’m listening!”
“Fate has placed in your hands a great strength, here in Castello; you can do whatever you wishyou can take life, you can reduce this village to ashes, you can save it from fire and death; choose! Will you choose?”
“Don’t ask me to do that; what are you leading up to?”
“I’m speaking to your heart, if you still have a heart; that’s why I asked you if you ever think of your mother.”
“Don’t remind me of my mother!” the captain shouted, as though he were being knifed. “I don’t want you to remind me of my mother!”
“Thank God, you still have a heart, Captain,” Father Yánaros said, and a light shone on his face. “You still have a heart; come down and let the two of us sit on the ledge and forget the past, damn it! We must save our villagehave you no pity for it? You hold the sword in Castello, and I, the Word of God; get off your horse and let us unite our two great strengths, my son.” As he talked, the priest gently stroked the sweating neck of the horse; he looked pleadingly into the captain’s eyes.
“Go ahead,” he kept saying, “make the sign of the cross and reach a decision …”
The sun had begun to set; the wild hills had filled with violets; the first jackals could be heard growling in the distance. A flock of vultures, satiated with food, passed silently over the church; a faint, sharp breeze came from the peak of the hill.
“It’s not only Castello, my son,” the voice of the priest came again, “it’s not only Castello, but all of Greecethe whole world! Christ is in danger. Decide!”
The captain could control himself no longer. “Quiet,” he growled. “Christ, Christ! Greece!Stop it!” His mouth spat out saliva and foam.
“You’ve begun your exorcisms again, you sacrilegious fool! Lay your cards on the table; you want me to surrender the village to the rebels, eh? Is that what you want? Is that what you
want, traitor? Take this!” And he swung his hand down in fury; the whip struck Father Yánaros on the neck and cheek. Growling, the captain jabbed his bloodied spurs into the belly of his horse.
“My child,” the priest cried, and his eyes filled with tears, “my child, there’s still time to save yourself; there’s an abyss before youwait! Be careful, or you will fall into it!”
“Then let me fall,” the captain growled again and turned his horse toward the barracks.
“All right, I’ve made up my mind, too,” Father Yánaros shouted at the horse and rider as he raised his hands to the sky. “God will choose!”
The rider disappeared at the bend of the road, but the sound of the horse, with its bloodied belly, could be heard neighing
with pain.
The priest stood motionless and looked at the air that was now becoming misty; he touched his cheek and his neck and only then felt the pain; he looked at his handit was covered with blood.
“From now on I expect nothing more of men,” he murmured. “But then again, what do I need with men? I have God I’ll go and talk with Him.”
9
THE CHURCH smelled of incense and wildflowers; the last rays of the sunred, green, bluefell on the narrow, stained glass windows of the dome and lit up the Pancreator. Years ago, Father Yánaros himself, lying on his back upon the scaffolding, had painted Him. He had depicted Him, not wild and furious as was the custom, but sad, tormented, pale, like a refugee. “I, too, am a refugee,” Father Yánaros had murmured as he painted, “a refugee; they chased me away from my land, away from my peaceful, sweet-blooded Thrace, and I climbed up here, to the wild, Epirotic hills, where I struggle and fight to make the beasts human. Christ is a refugee, on this earth, too, so I will paint Him as one.” He took yellow and green paints and he made His cheeks leaner, he curved His lips downward, drew lines on His neck; only around His eyes did he draw long golden rays that illuminated and filled His tormented face with hope. He had Him sitting on a long cushion, embroidered with birds and fish and people, and instead of holding a Bible in His hands, He held a strange, ugly little creature with large wings.
“What does that strange insect represent?” the bishop asked with curiosity one day when he passed through Castello. “Christ usually holds the Holy Bible or a blue spherethe earthin His hands; what have you put there? Mercy, my Lord!”
“Look closely, Your Eminence,” Father Yánaros replied, annoyed. “Can’t you see that it has wings?”
“And what of it? What does that represent?”
“The mouse that ate of the body of Christ from the Holy Al-tar and sprouted wingsa bat!”
“A bat!” the bishop shouted. “Lord have mercy on us; and what does that mean? Aren’t you ashamed, Father Yánaros?”
The Fratricides Page 15