The rebels turned and looked at him, and they laughed.
He went into the church, bowed before the Holy Altar; the blood-spattered rock still lay beside the crucifixion; he worshiped it. Whose blood was on it, a redhood’s? a blackhood’s? He did not question; he had taken the rock from the hill after one of the first battles. He had placed it on the Holy Altar be-side Christ on the cross and before every liturgy, he prayed to it.
He removed his vestment stole, folded it, wrapped it around the Bible, and put it under his arm. He made the sign of the cross as he took his staff from the corner. He felt his heart opening and an inexhaustible river of love spilling out, flowing from Castello to the valleys and the seashores of Greece. Love flowedit flowed, and Father Yánaros felt relief in his heart.
Who knows, he thought, perhaps Christ entrusted me, the unworthy one, with this great duty. In the name of God, His will be done. He turned to his right.
“Come,” he said to the Invisible One. “Let us go!”
He walked out of the church and stood in the middle of the courtyard. “I am leaving,” he shouted. “I will do as I said, I will go from village to village and I will shout: ‘Brothers, do not believe the reds, do not believe the blacks, unite in brotherhood!’ A village without a village idiot is nothing; I will become the village idiot, the lunatic of Greece, and I will go about shouting.”
The old man glowed in the morning light; there in the center of the courtyard he looked like a giant with his bloodied beard, with his black, bushy eyebrows, with his heavy staff and large boots.
He turned to Captain Drakos. “I’ve taken my vestment stole
and the Bible with me, Captain Charlatan. I’m taking with me all the slaughtered battalions and regiments; and all the mothers, murderer, who are dressed in mourning, and all the orphans and all the war’s cripples, the lame, the blind, the paralytics, the insane. I’m taking them and going on.”
“What are you saving him for, Captain?” shouted Loukas angrily. “Kill him!”
Father Yánaros shrugged his shoulders scornfully. “Do you think that I’m afraid of death? What can that bogeyman do to me? He can take me from this vain life to the eternal one the poor thing can do nothing more. Death is only a mule; you mount it, and it takes you to eternal life.”
He raised his hands to the sky. “If I live,” he cried, “if they let me live, I will never crucify You again, I swear; I will never leave You again, unprotected, to the mercy of Anna and Kayafas, my Lord Jesus! You said You hold a daggerwhere is it? How long will You go on being crucified? Enough of this! Come down to earth armed, this time. After such pain and bloodshed, I understand man’s duty. Virtue!arm yourself! Christ!arm yourself! I am going to preach through towns and villagesI am going to preach about the new Christ, the armed Christ!”
He stretched out his hand to the right, to the Invisible One. “Let us be on our way,” he said.
The rebels watched him with surprise. “The priest has gone mad.” Several of them laughed. “Who’s he talking to? Who’s he saying ‘Let us go’ to?”
Father Yánaros raised his hand to Drakos. “Captain Murderer, till we meet again!” And with a steady stride, he was over the threshold.
No one moved; Loukas looked sarcastically at his leader. “He’s going to set fires now,” he said. “Are you going to let him? Or do you feel sorry for him?”
But Drakos was silent as he watched the old man walk away, tapping his cane on the cobbles. He walked in large strides, his robes fluttering in the wind; his white hair swung over his shoulders as he walked; he was heading for the path to Prastova and he descended hurriedly. The stones dragged under his heavy shoes; beneath his arm, the gold-embroidered stole and the silver Bible gleamed in the rays of the morning sun. The
blood of the dead which he had poured over himself had run down his head and dripped on his sunburned nape.
Captain Drakos watched him, and his mind moved far away, to one of the shores of the Black Sea; to a village filled with peace, with Christianity and greenery. This old man had crow-black hair then, and was dark and slendera handsome priest; how he had stood up to the Turk and defended Christ and Christianity! And when the day came, the holiday of the pa-tron saint who held the village in his palm, how this old man entered those flames and clapped his hands and danced and never condescended to go out into the dangerless wind again!
How Drakos hated him, how he loved him, how he admired him!
And then he had lost sight of him; father and son had separated, and they met in the Albanian war years later. How he had rolled back his robes and climbed the hills, calling to the Virgin! And as he called Her, the soldiers saw Her climbing the rocks, carrying the wounded boys in Her arms. This old man could shape anything he wanted in the air, because he believed, because he pained. And his soul came out of his body and at times became the Virgin, at times St. George the Rider, at times a loud voice that cried, “Christ conquers!” And the inner be-ings of the soldiers would fill with assault.
Father Yánaros had descended now and was ready to take the path to Prastova; within the still-slanted rays of the sun his shadow fell like a giant on the rose-colored stones and continued on. A little more and he would pass the rocks and disappear be-hind them.
Loukas jumped over to the middle of the road and raised his rifle.
“Eh, Captain,” he called, “now let’s see the stuff you’re made of! So he’s your father: so what? Steel your heart! You have a duty to perform and a report to give. Didn’t you hear him? He says he wants to be free!”
Father Yánaros heard the rifle trigger cock behind him; he understood. Reaching to his right, he took Christ by the hand and placed Him in front to shield Him from the bullet.
“Come here, my Son,” he said softly, tenderly to Him. “Come, so that they will not hurt You.”
Two or three guerrillas came up and stood beside Loukas;
they, too, raised their rifles and took aim as they looked at the captain. Drakos stood by the gate, not speaking, admiring the way his father strode over the rocks, handsome and forceful as an old archangel.
“Eh, Captain,” Loukas called again. “I tell you he’s going to set firesstop him!” He paused for a moment and giggled. “Can it be that you feel sorry for him?”
The captain’s blood simmered; the eyes of all his men were fixed upon him, waiting. Loukas laughed again; he winked at his comrades, then turned to his leader.
“Now let’s see what you’re going to do, Captain,” he said, but he did not get a chance to finish.
Drakos raised his hand. “Shoot him!” he commanded in a choked voice, and his eyes filled.
“Eh, priest,” Loukas shouted, “eh, Father Yánaros, wait!”
The old man heard the call and turned. His bloodied beard gleamed a deep red in the sun. Loukas pushed aside his comrades and steadied his rifle butt on his shoulder. The bullet cought Father Yánaros in the forehead. The old man opened his arms, and without uttering a sound, fell, face down, on the stones.
[DUST COVER]
Nikos KAZANTZAKIS
THE FRATRICIDES
THIS IS Nikos Kazantzakis’s last novel, which he wrote before his death, in 1958.
The subject is the Greek Civil War: the Communists and the Monarchists are tearing each other to pieces, brother killing brother, whole villages decimating themselves in an endless succession of murders.
The hero is one of Nikos Kazantzakis’s most powerful creations: Father Yánaros, the Christ-like priest of a small Greek village, whose own son is fighting in the parched mountains, and who sees his people descending deeper and deeper into savagery.
Yánaros is the personification of Kazantzakis’s own passions and conflicts: a deeply religious man, he cannot bring himself to accept a God who has made the world so cruel a place; a humane and humble man, he is still subject to moments of cruelty and (continued on back flap)
Publishers: CASSIRER
Distributors: FABER & FABER LONDON
(‘continuedfrom front flap) horrified at the depths of his own pride. Despite the evidence of man’s barbarism that he sees all round him, despite his self-knowledge, despite the agonizing conflict between himself and his own son, Yánaros, like Kazantzakis, believes in Man.
Kazantzakis’s major novels can perhaps be separated into two categories: the epic religious novels, like God’s Pauper (Saint Francis) and The Last Temptation, and the Greek novels, like Zorba the Greek, Freedom and Death and Christ Re-crucified.
The Fratricides is a remarkable attempt to combine these two themes - his love for Greece and its cruel history, and his deep concern with religion and the problems of spiritual and political leadership - into a drama of universal significance.
Jacket: W. Ritchie
Publishers: CASSIRER
Distributors: FABER & FABER LONDON
The Fratricides Page 28