The Fratricides

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  “So you won’t take Christ out of the grave? You’ll leave Him like that all year, in the Bier? Well, it’s your sin, Father Yánaros—it’s your conscience!”

  “The sin is mine. I can take it; return to your homes!” Old Mandras pushed through the crowd and stood before the priest; he raised his staff. “You think you can crucify Christ and not resurrect Him?” he said, and foam spat from his mouth.

  “I can! I asked and I received permission. Your hands are covered with blood—all of you—go wash them first! Resurrection means clean hands and a clean heart! Christ does not want to be resurrected in Castello, He told me so. He refuses to be resurrected!”

  “The bishop will disrobe you for this, you Judas!”

  Father Yánaros laughed. “Don’t try to frighten me. If the bishop disrobes me, I will merely walk into Paradise without robes.”

  An old woman screamed, “Don’t you worry, you Antichrist, we mothers will gather and resurrect Christ ourselves!”

  “Go to your homes,” Father Yánaros shouted. “Go!”

  He tried to close the door, but old Mandras’ staff struck him, and blood spurted from the priest’s brow. Kyriákos stooped over and picked up a rock to throw, but he was frightened, and the rock slipped out of his hand.

  Curses rose from the people; several black-dressed women threw back their kerchiefs and began to beat their breasts and lament Christ. Father Yánaros wiped the blood from his face; his beard dripped with it.

  “Greek fratricides,” he shouted, “you want a Resurrection, eh? Do you dare resurrect Christ, you fools? Shame on you!” He slammed the door shut.

  “Goatbeard!” “Antichrist!” “Judas!” came the voices, and Kyriákos took courage, grabbed the rock he had dropped, and hurled it at the door.

  “Let’s go, friends!” Mandras shouted and took the lead. “Let’s go to the captain and report this scoundrel!”

  One by one the lamps went out inside the houses; the soldiers, lying on their bunks in the barracks, talked softly among themselves, their rifles at their sides. The guards, scattered outside, listened with cocked ears, but the only sound to be heard was a gray owl flying by, or a jackal howling with satisfaction, or a hungry dog barking at the moon which rose sadly over the hill.

  The captain, unable to sleep, sat disgruntled, on the threshold of the barracks, smoking one cigarette after another. How could he sleep when the village they had entrusted to him was in dan-ger, when his soldiers deserted every day—one by one; when there was hardly enough food or ammunition left? They had left him, forgotten him here in this wilderness, where he guarded the narrow straits so that the barbarians would not pass. But the barbarians were passing, they were in the village now. Who knows, they may be meeting on the hill, they may even be meeting secretly in the night, too, damn them!

  He threw his cigarette down and stamped on it with his worn army boot.

  “Fortresses are captured from within,” he murmured, “not from without; our enemies are inside. I must clean them out! And first of all that priest; he’s too big a bite to chew, the scoundrel, but I’ll chew him yet!”

  He got up and went for a short walk to feel the cold night wind upon him; on the hilltop the rebels had lit fires; the captain’s blood rushed to his head at sight of them; he shook his fist toward the hill.

  “Dishonorable ones,” he growled, “traitors who sold out your country! I’ll get you yet!”

  As he said this, a great pain clutched his heart; he remembered the first days he had come to Castello; one morning he had fallen asleep and had dreamed a dream; he dreamt that he

  lay asleep in the crumbled Chapel of the Forerunner on the side of the hill. And that suddenly, in his sleep, he heard weeping; he opened his eyes, and a woman dressed in black—mourning —stood before him. She was very pretty and very pale, with large eyes, and tears streamed down her cheeks and on her chin.

  “Who are you?” he asked, and held out his hands, assuming that she was the Virgin. “Don’t you recognize me?” she replied. “Don’t you recognize me, my Captain?”

  “Who are you?” he asked again and began to tremble.

  Her voice came soft and sad. “I am Greece, my son. My peo-ple are sending me away. I have nowhere to lay my head, so I came to seek refuge with you, my son.”

  He screamed and jumped to his feet; tears streamed down his face.

  “Mother,” he murmured, “don’t cry, I won’t leave you alone and unprotected; have faith, I will die for your sake!”

  From that day, the captain became another man. He had fought in the Great War—once in the Albanian hills, another time on the African sands—one Greek among thousands —a brave fighter among thousands of brave fighters. At first, he was just a plain soldier; but slowly, by daring, he received the stripes of an N.C.O., then the stars of an officer. He became a captain, like many others. But from the night of that dream, he could sleep no more. He felt that Greece no longer stood before him; she was inside him now, calling to him for help. If she is lost, I am to blame, he thought. If she is saved, I will have saved her. And he would leap into battle with fury. Only once, cursed be the day, only once did he forget Greece. He had returned from battle one night and did not find his wife at home; she had taken to the hills to join the rebels.

  He spat and turned back—it was midnight now, and he returned to the barracks; cold sweat poured from his brow and from his armpits.

  “Forgive me, Mother,” he murmured, “I forgot you that day; but we’re only human, we poor unfortunates; we love our wives, and we humiliate ourselves because of them.”

  He sat down, cross-legged, leaned his head against the wall of the barracks, and his thoughts went far, to that village in the hills of Roumeli, to his mother, to the sands of Africa; his mind

  brought him back to Castello and to Father Yánaros and to his soldiers; it would not let him dwell on his shameless wife who was sleeping with God only knows whom at this hour. But his mind kept going back, again and again, to his wife.

  “God damn her, God damn her,” he murmured, “the lion fears only one thing—the louse; but I won’t let her get me down, no I won’t let her!”

  He lit a cigarette and leaned back again.

  In one of the neighborhoods at the edge of town, near the barracks, a door opened slowly—halfway—and an old woman’s head appeared, a red ribbon in her hair. She looked up and down; the lamps were out, the road was deserted; the old woman took courage and stepped out of the door. She was barefooted, a patched shawl was wrapped about her, and she walked, crouching, from wall to wall; every so often she would turn to see if anyone was following her. She crept silently to the barracks and saw the captain, who was now standing up against the wall, deep in thought. Her heart beat wildly; she stopped to catch her breath, and she trembled. The moonlight fell upon her; she was old, all wrinkles, and her large eyes were filled with fire. Her hands were cold, stiff, eaten away by the many clothes she had washed; the whole town taunted her, and the villagers roared with laughter when they met her on the street; so she went out only at night or early dawn. She was Kyra Polyxeni, a servant since childhood in the house of old Mandras. She was in her sixties, and now in her later years she had taken to wearing a red ribbon in her hair. Her long years of virginity had affected her mind; she had dizzy spells and often she would fall screaming to the ground. Not too long ago she had fallen in love with the village butcher, Thanasi, a young man of thirty. Every Saturday night she would put the red ribbon in her hair and linger outside the butcher shop, sighing.

  “When will you marry me, Kyr Thanasi?” she would ask every time she caught him alone, “when are we getting married, my dear? I can’t stand it any longer.” And, to get rid of her, he would answer, “I need a large dowry, my turtledove; we’re go-ing to have a lot of children, you know, and children cost money; I want you to live like a queen.”

  “How much of a dowry, Thanasi dear?”

  “I want twelve hammocks, six silver censers, and fifty pairs of men’s shorts.�
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  “Very well, my treasure, I’ll go tell my master.” She would return to the house and fall at the feet of old Mandras.

  “Master,” she would say to him, “take pity on me, give me twelve hammocks, six silver censers, and fifty pairs of men’s un-dershorts so I can marry Kyr Thanasi; otherwise, he says he will not have me.”

  Old Mandras would laugh. “The son of a bitch wants too much; I can’t give you that, Polyxeni. Where would I find fifty pairs of shorts? Let him be.” And the poor soul would go back to the butcher. “The master says he can’t give me all that. It’s too much for him.”

  “Well, it just wasn’t meant to be, my dear; we can’t go against Fate, can we?”

  “Let’s elope!” she would reply, and wiggle her hips.

  “All right,” he said to her one night when he had had enough of her nagging, “I’ll come for you at midnight, and we’ll elope. You be ready, now.” She went running back to the house, waited for everyone to fall asleep, bathed, washed and combed her hair, changed her clothing, and hid behind the main door and waited. She waited … midnight came and left, the dawn broke, but Kyr Thanasi was nowhere in sight! The poor woman fell ill from disillusionment; the dizzy spells increased, her mind dulled, and the years passed. But her heart could not re-main idle; she fell in love with Stelianos the weaver. She liked him because he had a deep voice and large ears. One evening she cornered him in church after vespers, when everyone had gone. “Stelianos, my dear,” she said, “would you like to marry me?”

  “How can I, Polyxeni?” He understood her grief and felt sorry for her. “Can I help it if I’m already married? But my brother Sophocles, the army officer, loves you—I know that for a fact. Wait until he returns to the village, and then he’ll marry you.”

  Sly old Mandras heard of this and he went to Stelianos; together they talked and plotted. And when poor Polyxeni went to Stelianos to ask when her beloved was coming, he told her

  that he had just received a letter from him. “And what does he say about me, Stelianos, my dear?”

  “He says he’s coming at Christmas and that he wants only this of you: that you continue to be a good housekeeper and keep cleaning your master’s chicken coop, that you do the washings without complaining, and that you take care not to break his dishes; and he also said not to ask Mandras for wages—don’t stoop to such a thing—don’t forget, you are an officer’s woman! You must be proud!”

  She waited for Christmas; it came and went. The next Christmas came and went, too, and the years rolled by. Kyra Polyxeni’s hair turned white, her breasts sagged, her teeth dropped out, the fuzz on her upper lip thickened. Then the civil war broke out, and the captain came to the village. “My brother Sophocles is here,” Stelianos told her. “Go find him and talk things over.”

  And so, now, every night, the poor woman wraps herself in her patched shawl and when the town is asleep, she steals silently from the house toward the barracks; and when she sees the captain alone, she crawls before him and trembles. Once the captain raised his hand to strike her, and she crossed her hands with happiness. “Hit me, my beloved,” she said, “hit me so I can feel your hand upon me.”

  But tonight, as he suddenly heard her sighing, he became furious. “I’m not in a good mood tonight,” he growled, “go away!”

  “All right, all right, I’m leaving, my dear,” she said obedi-ently, and tightening her hole-ridden shawl about her, she turned back, running from one wall to another, and disappeared.

  “I’m going to lose my mind in this place,” growled the captain and began to pace back and forth, cursing the rebels, the teacher, Father Yánaros, this idiot woman …

  “Come here, Mitros,” he called to his sergeant, “let’s sit down. What do you say about this devil-priest, this Father Yánaros?”

  The sergeant wrinkled his face and shrugged his shoulders.

  “What can I say, Captain? It’s a strange thing; when he’s not around, I’m not afraid of him, in fact I can grab him by his beard and pull out the hairs one by one. But the minute he comes in view, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ My knees buckle. What can that mean? Do you think that what he says is true?

  But damn it, if it’s true, then the devil has really taken us, sir!”

  “What does he say, Mitros? Don’t make faces—tell me!”

  “He says, ‘Christ stands at the right of me; no one can see Him except I, and that’s why I’m not afraid of anyone!’ Do you think it’s true, Captain, sir?”

  The captain’s anger had mounted. “I think that you’re beginning to lose your mind, too, Mitros. It’s time to leave here, before we all lose our senses; that’s why I called you. Now listen, I don’t like Father Yánaros’ actions at all. Don’t you see him? He’s getting a little too dangerous; he talks secretly with the soldiers; every so often he goes into the house of that tubercular teacher, that bolshevik. You mark my words, that impostor is cooking’ up something with that traitor son of his in the hills. What do you think? Hey, I’m talking to you—where’s your mind?”

  The sergeant shook his head. “I don’t know what to say, Captain. There’s one thing I keep trying to push out of my mind, but it just won’t go! All this Holy Week it’s been eating me up inside—day and night; I’m glad I found you in good spirits tonight so I can ask you; may I, sir?”

  “Go on.”

  “Do you think, sir, that that sash of the Virgin is real?”

  The captain shrugged his shoulders. “What do you care, Mi-tros? Whether it’s real or false, it does its job; you heard what that monk shouted when he passed the barracks, didn’t you? ‘Kill! Kill, and receive the blessings of the Virgin! Kill the redhoods, and be sanctified!’ That’s what he cried, bless him! The people hear the voice of God from the lips of the monk and they kill with more fervor; that sash is more effective than a cannon.”

  “But Father Yánaros says that he is the voice of God, Captain,” the sergeant dared to answer, “and yet he preaches completely different things. ‘Kill, kill!’ shouts the one; ‘Don’t kill, don’t kill!’ shouts the other; which of the two is the true voice of God? Or does God have many voices?”

  The captain snickered. “Don’t be stupid, Mitros,” he said, “don’t you see what’s going on all over the world? Or do you think we’re the only ones who have rebels? What do you think they’re doing everywhere else on earth? One head dares to rise

  up and bang! Down it goes! That’s what we’re going to do, too. That’s the meaning of the Holy Sash.”

  “But for how long, Captain? I don’t know what the Russians are doing or the Chinese or the Africans; but there’s only a few of us—we’re going to be wiped out …”

  “That’s enough talk!” the captain said nervously. “God help us if we start asking questions at this point—we’ll all go to the devil! A soldier is supposed to kill and not ask questions. Now go!”

  12

  THE MOON balanced on the peak of the hill; the stars were dimmed by its light, and only a few, the nearer ones, shone in the quiet night. The earth smelled of sulphur and God’s presence. Having reached a decision, Father Yánaros hurriedly climbed the difficult uphill road. At intervals an owl hooted sadly and fluttered from rock to rock; Father Yánaros would turn his large head toward it and spit three times in the air, to exorcise any evil that might lie ahead.

  He had gathered his patched robe around him and tucked it under his wide leather belt; his legs, bare to the knees, shone in the light of the moon; they were twisted, knotted, like the aged trunks of olive trees. His hat had fallen and pressed against his thorny, still-black eyebrows, and his wild, quick-moving eyes flashed from inside their deep sockets.

  He looked around quickly, behind him, ahead of him; Father Yánaros knew these hills well; they were wild hills, all rocks and pebbles. Not a green tree, or grazing sheep, or villages or people; only thorny thyme, wild plants, and pitiful bushes. In the sky were vultures; above them, hawks; and higher, hungry eagles, and still higher—God!

 
“Poor Greece!” murmured Father Yánaros, shaking his head, toughened by the sun and the rains. “Poor, unfortunate Greece! You’re all rock and wilderness and hunger; you’re all blood!”

  His gaze moved more slowly, more compassionately now, from side to side, from hill to hill, caressing the shoulders of

  Greece. Slowly, tenderly, with compassion and pride. And as though she felt the caress, Greece came alive under this loving gaze and shivered from happiness.

  He rested his chin on his thick staff, and the old memories came back; his heart swelled, it could hold no more, and it beat against his aged chest to escape. “Where will you go?” the old fighter asked her, as though she were a beloved partridge that he had locked in a cage to listen to her singing. “Where will you go, you little fool? Sit quietly, you’re all right here!

  “You’re all glory and hunger, my poor Greece,” he shouted. “From your toes to your head, you’re all soul. You must not be destroyed; no, Mother, we will not let you be destroyed!”

  He threw back his head, tightened his hold on his staff, and thrust it with might into the ground, as though he were taking an oath. Then he looked about at the bald, deserted hills that were saturated with blood; he looked at the rocks, the cliffs, and he was overcome with divine respect.

  “God was born here in these wild hills,” he murmured, “the God of Greece—our God, with the evzone skirts, the shin guards, the tsarouchia, and our Pancreator was made from these bloodstained rocks. Every nation has its own God; this is our God; this is the one we use—stone of our stone, blood of our blood—pained, a thousand times wounded, stubborn like us, immortal.”

  He stooped and picked up a black pebble splattered with fresh blood; he kissed it and placed it in the crack of a cliff, as though it were holy bread, so no one would step on it.

  He felt the Invisible around him, as hard as the stone, scented like the thyme; the uninhabited hilltops filled with God, and Father Yánaros’ heart neighed like a stallion; he was not alone and desolate in the world; all of God was with him; he suddenly felt a supernatural strength in his heart and in his hands; he gained new courage, and the stones began to roll under his boots again.