The Fratricides

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  A flaming, pock-marked face, his head round and thick, full of hair and whiskers—and withih it, in flowing waves, were the seas he had drifted upon, the ports where he had anchored, the white, black, yellow, and brown races of men he had seen.

  His mind, a dark wine-colored sun, rose from a vast, fertile valley and looked down upon the earth like a hungry lion. At first he could distinguish nothing; the earth had not awakened yet, and her nakedness was covered by the morning mist. But slowly the thin veil moved; lifted by the sun, it became trans-parent, turned to vapor, and settled over the grass like dew. And one could see the valley flooded with light, and the muddy yel-low river, wide as an ocean, crowded with small boats with raised masts—black and orange sails—and the little yellow men who shrieked and jumped like little monkeys on the decks. And suddenly drums and trumpets sounded; the earth began to rumble; millions of yellow feet pounded the stones and the soil as they descended. A song rose in the air from numberless mouths—a wild, joyous, triumphant song that called out to freedom.

  They came in increasing waves, singing, from the opposite

  sandy slopes, from the green lakes, the distant hills; round, flat-tened faces made of the mud of the muddy yellow river, with slanted eyes and long braids and turned-down mustaches. The morning sun fell upon them, and their rifles gleamed, and their bayonets, the bronze buttons on their khaki coats and the red and green dragons on their striped flags. They had perched on the long walls; they had crumbled the ancient barriers; they rushed everywhere. They embraced and destroyed thousands of villages; they swept away the old, fatigued noblemen; they raised the well-fed ones from their tables, and sat the hungry down. They covered the walls with huge red flags that had black dragons on them and strange letters that looked like hammers and sickles, and human heads cut off by the sword. And the passers-by lingered and read: “Eat and drink, all you workers of the world—your time has come!”

  Men with long braids came from the distant hills, bearing messages. They were barefoot and wore pointed straw hats, and they fell to the ground, screaming and pleading. They all shouted at once in confusion, and one could make out only a few of the archaic words: “Hunger, prison, death!” And the army would go off again, spilling over north and south; Freedom —that armed ghost covered with blood—marched ahead. And behind it, like a tail, the immortal mob: Hunger, Plunder, Fire, Slaughter!

  “The air stinks! Who are these people that descend upon us?” asked the velvet-capped nobles from their gold-latticed windows. And in reply, thousands of flaming tongues fell down upon them.

  The sun looked at his yellow armies and tried to count them, but they were countless. He smiled, satisfied, and went on. The valley and the wide river disappeared behind him as he rose over jungles, over hot, damp forests that were filled with scorpions and poisonous flowers; the foul-breathed air sparkled with green, pink, and blue wings; the hoarse wind chattered like a parrot; there was a harsh smell of camphor, cinnamon, and nut-meg. The sun was high, and the beasts returned to their lairs, their stomachs full and their mouths dripping blood.

  The sun could not bypass the jungle; he reddened angrily and continued on. In the jungle clearings were thousands of

  men, like armies of ants—Anamites, Malayans, Javanese—with thin-boned joints and flaming eyes that moved stealthily. Motionless, they kept watch; some held hand grenades and rifles; others, daggers bent like scythes. Some carried heavy rods with steel heads or striped flags with laughing lions and white ele-phants and green snakes painted on them. Generations of them had worked and hungered. Generations of them did no work, but remained silent. Now they had had enough. The sun fell over them, gently caressed their hungry, tormented bodies, and smiled.

  One night after work’s end, as they knelt, crying softly on the seashore for fear of being heard by their white masters, a strange new god landed on their shores. He began to roll over the pebbles of the seashore, to creep toward them like a huge round scorpion, like a wheel with thousands of slow-moving hands around it that held hammers and sickles. The new god passed heavily over the flogged backs; he walked through the villages, stood in the squares and began to shout. What did he shout? Everyone stood up and wiped his eyes. They watched him with joy and fear, and though they did not understand what he said, their hearts leaped and growled within them. They did not know that a wild beast lay inside; they thought it was a little squirrel that trembled—but in truth, it was the heart of man awakening and growling because it was hungry.

  Yes, they stood up and wiped their eyes; they looked around them, and for the first time, saw the hills, the seas, the forests, the fruit on the trees, the water buffalo that rose from the lakes, the birds in the air—all this, all this belonged to them. This was their land, made from the bones and sweat and tears, the very breath of their fathers. They knelt and kissed the earth as though it were their ancestors, as though they were embracing their forefathers. And, shielding their eyes from the sun with their hands, they looked up at their white masters, who sat in the covered terraces, drinking, and smoking aromatic cigars while watching, with glassy blue eyes that narrowed and with mouths that drooled, the fragile Javanese girls, the naked Indonesians, the slender Malayans, who laughed and shrieked and swayed their hips before them.

  The bile rushed to their slanted Indonesian and Javanese and

  Malayan eyes, and at that moment they understood clearly what the new god was saying.

  “Get out! Get out!” The cries were heard from one end of the jungle to the other, from one sea to the next. “Get out! Get out! Holland for the Dutch, France for the French, America for the Americans. Out! Out!”

  The multi-eyed sun was higher now; he watched his dark-skinned children, heard their shouts and their taunts and, murmuring a blessing to them, smiled and went on.

  Now he passed over huge peaks and snow-capped mountains, over sacred slow-moving rivers, over thousands of muddy villages and countless people with thin bodies that were eaten away by hunger, and with large, velvet eyes full of perseverance and forgotten gods. And on the edge of a river, a skeleton-like ascetic turned a prayer wheel. He turned and turned this ancient wheel of fate, and millions of souls gathered around him; and he would speak to them, smile, and fall silent again. Naked, toothless, a mere water snake with arms and legs like St. John the Forerunner—and, armed to the hilt with his soul, he fought a great empire, motionless, there at the edge of the river.

  The sun paused above him and illuminated him. Its light went up and down the bald head, the tortured chest, the empty belly, the slender thighs, the skinny legs. What is the soul of man, of real man? the sun pondered. A flame, sadness, joy, an upsurging spring that breaks through the thick skin of earth and rises? Some call it revenge, others call it justice; some call it freedom, others, God; I call it the soul of man! And as long as it can spurt up from the earth, I have faith that my light does not go wasted. How glad I am that I have eyes to see and ears to hear and arms long enough to reach down and embrace the world! What a wasteland, what tragedy if the soul of real men did not exist; and how useless my light would be.

  The sun rose higher; it reached the peak of the sky and paused. A desert—sand—the bark of earth steams, inflamed! There is little water here, the wells are dry; the light spills over the rose-violet-colored hills like a waterfall—the only waterfall in this wilderness. Here and there a palm tree, a camel, a glisten-ing snake; a wild, sad cry pierces the air. A hot wind rises and the sand moves; it becomes stormy, like the sea; the spine of

  earth shivers. And suddenly, in this vast wilderness, tents appear, dark-skinned women, with long, deft fingers stained with henna, mix flour and water. They rub two stones and light small fires; the smoke—man’s true banner—rises, and Death is reborn.

  Men with white sashes sit nearby, cross-legged, and listen at-tentively. A peddler has come from distant shores, from the lands of the disbelievers, selling beads and small minors and salt and multicolored cloth. He, too, sits cross-legged in the shade of the tent as he tel
ls of the many things that happen far away. He tells of magic machines and of new rifles, of white women and of blond boys. He speaks of the poor and the rich, of starving men who suddenly rise, break down the doors of the rich, and sit down to well-laden tables, lie down on soft beds, mount the iron-winged horses, and spin fantasies in the air.

  The Bedouin hearts are set afire as they listen; the eyes bulge and look far out, at the burning winds, toward the west. And the peddler knows that the hour has come; he takes out a notebook from his shirt and reads from it. He says it is the new Koran, the latest message from Allah; it came from far away, from the North, from the new Mecca which is also called Mos-cow. The Prophet has been reborn; he has taken a new name; he has written a new Koran. He calls to the Arabs again, to his faithful, to gather round him, to plunder the world once more. Haven’t you had enough of hunger and scorn and the desert? Go on then, the time has come! Unfurl the Prophet’s green flags in the wind! There is only one Allah, and his prophet is Mohammed. Today, Mohammed is called Lenin.

  The sun, with his round, innocent face, laughed again. The seed has fallen in the desert now, he thought, and it won’t be long before the desert is flowering, too. A hungry beetle, this peddler, so hungry that he goes from flower to flower, from tent to tent, from heart to heart; and his wings are loaded with red seed. God bless you, he added, I’m weary of the face of this old earth. I’m just an old carriage-driver going along the same path without stopping. For years now I’ve watched the same masters flogging the same backs. Let the wheel turn; let new faces come to light; let the heart move a few paces so that the world may move, too! Go on then, Apostle Beetle, you old peddler, courage! I have seen thousands of beetles like you; they all peddle the

  same wares, but each gives them different names. You’re great storytellers, all of you, and I like you. And men—eternal innocent children that they are—believe your tales; and because the soul of man is mighty, the tales become truth. One century, two centuries, three, four, until finally, wide-eyed, they realize it was only a story and they laugh at it. Then new storytellers come, with other tales, and the people are off again. And that’s how my time passes. Health to you, peddler, happy peddling. Now forgive me, but I must be on my way.

  Captain Drakos threw his head back and scanned the distance with his eye. He looked at the rocks where he had planted the flag of freedom many months ago. The whole world and all the oceans were gathered upon this hill. All these months, the hill and the people had become one—their fates had merged. He felt that he was a centaur—that from the waist down he was this mountain; he had taken of its wildness and its hardness, and the mountain seemed to have taken on the soul of man. Indeed it had, for as it stretched up to the sky and looked at the valley, it seemed to be calling to the blackhoods below. It felt that it was no longer a hill like the other hills, but a shield of freedom. For months now, men had bloodied their hands on this mountain as they pierced its insides, as they dug nests for their cannon, raised beams, cleared paths. Bombs had covered it with wounds; the stones were burned, and a few thorns and low bushes, which had climbed this far, had become ashes. This hill had drunk of human blood; it had eaten human brains. Its ravines and ditches were sown with human bones. And so it became a ghost; it joined the guerrillas; it fought for freedom. It, too, growled in battle and made threats. And many times it spat flames from its peak as a signal to the other hills.

  “All’s well, all’s well,” it murmured sadly, “yet I’m going to explode!”

  Angrily, Captain Drakos threw the rock he had been crumbling in his hand; he heard it echoing on the hillside and within him, and then, silence.

  “What the hell’s wrong with me,” he growled. “What is this devil inside of me again, and where is he driving me? He governs my whole life—he, not I! Freedom, they say—bah!

  What freedom? He’s the only free one—the devil within us— he’s free, not us! We’re only his mule, and he saddles us and goes off. But where’s he going?”

  Drakos’ past life raced quickly before him. He remembered his youth; he had wined and dined; he’d gotten drunk and made love to find forgetfulness; but there was no relief. The devil would rise within him and cry out, “Shame on you, shame on you, beast!” And in order to escape the voice, he went into exile; he became a boatswain on a freighter and lost himself on the seven seas. What a life that was! What excitement! What honor!

  Does nothing, then, ever die within us? Can nothing die as long as we are alive? Once more his temples throbbed with the seas he had roamed, with the ship, his comrades, the exotic ports— Alexandria, Suez, Port Said, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong —the muddy yellow seas, the yellow women. And once more his nostrils inhaled the nauseating smell of urine and spices and the stench of women’s sweating armpits.

  He would go ashore freshly shaven, his pitch-black mustache twisted, a cigarette behind his ear. And he would stroll through the secret neighborhoods and select the women he liked. He be-came acquainted quickly, simply. He would wink his eye at the woman who caught his fancy, or pinch her arm, or look at her and groan gently, like a calf. Love, to him, was like a game he played with his friends when he was a child—leap frog. Five or ten players would bend over, he would spit and rub his palms, step back and jump over them one by one, like lightning, and triumphantly end up on his toes.

  What is man’s body made of that it can give and receive so much happiness? How is it that lips—a mere bit of flesh—can touch your lips and cause your mind to swerve? Drakos felt a great happiness when his body was pressed against a woman’s. During those moments even his soul became flesh, so that it, too, could feel the joy of the tight embrace. And he would re-turn to his ship at dawn, carrying armfuls of bananas and pine-apple and silk handkerchiefs dipped in camphor and musk.

  On other occasions, Death rode their ship. Drakos would fight him, chase him from the prow where he sat. And the sea would become calm again, and the sailors would put on the pot

  of steaming meat in the galley. Then bottles of wine would be passed around, and they would eat and drink; they would get drunk and begin to talk of their homes. Each one would pull his yellow, faded photographs from out of his shirt and pass them from hand to hand so the others could admire their wives and children that waited for them back home. But Drakos had no wife or children to show; he kept an old photograph of his father the priest—Father Yánaros—with the robes and the cross on a chain, and the heavy Bible, opened in his arms. He would show it to his friends and roar with laughter. His comrades would take courage and laugh, too. “Health to you, you old handsome goatbeard!” they would shout, and all together they would mockingly chant the funeral service.

  What a life that was, filled with smuggling and shame and heroics! Once he had even raised mutiny aboard one of the ships. A storm had come up, and the ship was in danger, while the captain sat drinking in his cabin with two yellow women on his knees. Drakos gathered the crew around him, grabbed the drunken captain, buried him in the hold, and took over the rudder. On another occasion, Japanese pirates attacked them in the middle of the ocean. A wild battle followed; Captain Drakos captured three pirate ships, tied them to the stern of his ship, and towed them to Hong Kong, where he sold them.

  And suddenly he had quit everything—ships, smuggling, women. They had reached an Indian port when the telegram came: War in Albania—the cowardly spaghetti-eaters, the sneaks in the night, had entered Greek soil and were tuning their guitars to go down to Yánnina. When he heard this, a voice leaped within him. It was not his voice, it was his father’s, his grandfather’s. It was an old, old voice, born of freedom and death. When he heard it, he shouted back furiously: “You dare order me to do my duty? I don’t need you for that, and I’ll show you!”

  He hopped on a plane and returned to his country; he put on battle dress, entered the war, fought heroically, and won his stripes. But black days soon fell upon them; the country became infected, it was overrun with boots, guitars, and Bulgarian caps. Drakos took to the hills and foug
ht all these empires, alongside another fifty barefoot, ragged men, until the blessed day came

  when the winds of God blew over them, and the foreign boots scattered; and the Greeks were left with the Greeks, on their own soil again.

  For months he had not washed or shaved or changed shirts. Still smoking from the gunpowder, covered with hair and dirt, he went down to Salonica to celebrate the liberation of his country. He went to a bathhouse and washed, then headed for a barber shop. He changed his shirt and underwear and with his old fellow seamen went to a port tavern. For three days and three nights they drank and sang songs of freedom. On the evening of the fourth day, a middle-aged Jew with thick lips and a crooked nose walked in and sat at their table. They offered him a drink, and then another, and he was soon in a gay mood.

  “Eh, my brave young fighters,” he said, “with your permission, I will tell you a story. Pay attention, brothers, for, by the God I believe in, whoever understands this will become a new man—a blind man who sees, a heartless man who gains a heart. Joy to him who understands, he’ll rise, walk out of this tavern, look around him, and shout, ‘It’s a miracle! The world has changed!’”

  “Go on, you old skinflint, you’re killing us with curiosity!” Drakos said and filled the Jew’s cup with wine. “Drink so you can think up more stories to tell us.”

  The old man emptied his cup and began: “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and here we go— good evening! Once upon a time, in the snowy regions of the North there was a land so large that you could walk across it for years and never reach its end. They called it Russia, as you know. In those years, a thousand people, ten thousand people worked, so that one could eat. The thousand and ten thousand went hungry; they were called Russian peasants. And that one person, the one who ate, was called the nobleman. Day and night the noblemen sat before their lighted fireplaces and drank a strong white wine they called vodka; they drank, mellowed, picked up their carbines, stood the peasants in a line, and used them for target practice.”