“I will – some day.” Ronnie’s young face was exalted. “I’ll take you away from here. To England, where people are civilised and don’t do things like this to women. We’ll always be together.”
His arms tightened around her, and his head bent to hers. Her mouth plastered itself on his. She pressed herself against him, seemed almost to press herself into him, as if her body might melt, cloud-like, into his.
I came forward then. I said, “Good evening,” casually, before I came round the corner, and Ronnie jumped back, out of her arms. I stayed with them until she went in, and later, after he was asleep, I got Bert out of the house and talked with him:
“We’ll have to leave, Bert. Things are getting too thick here; the kids are falling in love.”
I told him everything; everything, that is, except those fantastic nightmares of old Kyra Stamata’s mother’s. Bert, like many Queenslanders, has seen a good deal of the aborigines; and although he pretends to scoff at their dark beliefs and practices, they have left their mark upon his mind. I was afraid he might be too much impressed.
As it was, he was not enough impressed. He laughed.
“Me, I’d let the kids have their fun, Johnny. This is wartime; it may be all they’ll ever have. But that’s the schoolmaster of it, I suppose; you’ve got to have everything proper and respectable. And maybe it would be just as well to clear out. The longer we stay the less chance we’ll have of getting picked up by our own boats; they may be all gone already.”
I was so surprised that I was startled into an undiplomatic honesty. Undiplomatic since I wanted, suddenly and desperately, to get away.
“You know very well there’s no chance of that, Bert. Any Englishmen that are left on this island are stranded – without a dog’s chance of getting out, unless it’s on a Cretan fishing-boat.”
Bert looked sheepish. “I know. But, nice as they’ve been to us here and all, I’d just as soon get out, Johnny. The old lady makes me feel funny; I can’t help it. She looks like somebody – or something – I’ve seen somewhere else. And how do she and the girl both come to know English so well when they’ve never either one been down off this mountain, and when there’s not a book – not even a Greek bible – in the house?”
I said testily: “That’s nonsense, Bert. You sound as if you suspected them of something. You know Aretoúla’s father had been to America – was educated and progressive, quite different from the superstitious peasants around here. Kyra Stamata has talked about that. He must have taught her English.”
He said doggedly: “Maybe. But it’s queer she learned it so well – and remembered it so well all these years. And it’s queer how she knew every last thing that was going on in the war up until we came here – and now she never hears a thing. Nobody ever comes up here; nobody’s supposed to have come up here in a long time. How did she get her news then – and what made it stop? If it did stop. I’m not accusing her of anything; I just don’t like the whole layout. It’s too queer.”
I laughed at him; there can be no doubt of these good wom en’s friendliness. But some of his points were shrewd and well made. More shrewd than I would have expected of Bert. I am more glad than ever that I did not tell him the wild parts of that story of Aretoúla’s. In the morning we will ask her grandmother about the mountain passes; about the best way to leave.
7th June: They were hurt and grieved, as I was afraid they would be; our two hostesses. They say that Ronnie’s leg is not well enough for any journey – too much truth in that, I fear. They ask us if we are not happy with them – safe? If they have not done everything they can for us? They have; the trouble is that I am afraid that if we stay Aretoúla will do too much. Perhaps I can find a chance to talk with Kyra Stamata before the day is over; warn her of that danger. We cannot leave till tomorrow anyway; that is clear.
Midnight: I have had horrible dreams; I could almost think that I am going mad. Perhaps it was my failure to get a chance for private talk with Kyra Stamata that made me restless, unable to sleep soundly. Yet I was very sleepy when we went to bed; we all were, for, in honour of our last night, Kyra Stamata had brought out her last bottle of wine, one that she had brewed with her own hands, according to an ancient recipe of her family. A strange wine, tasting of honey. And of something else, something to which I cannot put a name.
It went to all our heads, and we were glad to go to bed early; I remember thinking hazily that that would be better, anyway, when we men were to start out early in the morning. But in the dead of night I woke; in a sudden sweat of fear, though I did not know what had roused me.
And then I heard it again: the creak of a door, the door of the inner room, where the women slept. They were coming out, into the room where we lay, and as I realised that my heart leapt with relief – and then stood still.
For Aretoúla was carrying a torch, and in her grandmother’s hand was a knife. A long, thin knife. The torchlight shone brightly on the blade and redly in both women’s eager eyes.
Aretoúla said softly: “All is well, Grandmother. They sleep.”
The old woman did not answer at once. She came a little farther into the room, her head thrust forward, slightly bent. Like a bird’s, when it hunts food. Her neck looked long; longer than a woman’s neck should be; her jutting nose was like a beak, her beady eyes blazed with greed. And in that instant I knew her! Knew her for the bird that had flown above us in the mountains, the bird that had danced and menaced us as the sun set!
She came and stood looking down at us. And though I strained every muscle to rise, though my throat swelled with a shriek, I could not! I lay as if paralysed; even my lips were locked.
Aretoúla said nervously: “You will not touch the young one, Grandmother? You had Grandfather awhile before you ate out his vi tals; Mother had Father awhile before you and she ate his out. I, too, want my time of love.”
The old woman grunted. “You shall have it, little one; never fear. We will take the big one first; he should be the richest and most savoury. Give me the dish now.”
Aretoúla bent and lifted it from its place beside the hearth. A pot that I had often seen them cook in; a fine old copper pot. It gleamed now as the torchlight touched it.
Kyra Stamata came a step nearer; stood squarely above us. Above Bert . . .
I tried to cry out; I tried, as hard as any man ever tried to move. But I might as well have tried to lift a stone wall as my own body.
I saw the knife flash, swift and bright as lightning, as the old woman’s arm shot down. I saw it rip Bert’s whole chest open; heard him groan and saw his body lift convulsively and then stiffen. There was another hollow groan. And then he lay very still, with a bright red ribbon seeming to stretch between his throat and chest.
But not for long. The old woman still bent over him. She thrust the knife back into the wound, turned it . . . thrust in her whole hand . . . I think I must have swooned.
After that I had only brief glimpses. I saw her straightening up again, with Bert’s heart in her hand; Bert’s heart, red and dripping. I heard her telling Aretoúla to stir the embers of the fire. Once after that, I was roused from another spell of unconsciousness by the smell of burning flesh.
But I will not tell what I saw after that. I cannot. Only one thing: once Ronnie stirred and moaned in his sleep, and Aretoúla came across to him and laid her hand gently on his face, her own face as tender as a young mother’s.
“Sleep, my golden one,” she murmured in her soft, singing voice. “Sleep.”
And he did sleep. Thank God, he is still asleep.
Before they went back into the inner room they came and leaned over Bert again. They ran their slim hands gently over his body. And they laughed; their sweet, shrill, birdlike laughter.
“Beware! Beware, O squeezed sponge, of running water!”
And then again, I seemed to swoon. And when I awoke, a little while ago, Bert was breathing peacefully. There was no sign of any wound upon his chest. But I dare not try to sleep again;
I dare not dream again. I will sit up for what is left of this night.
8th June: I will steal a few minutes to write in this journal before we leave. To write something sane and sensible in it, after last night’s vagaries. It was a dream; all a horrible, fantastic dream.
And yet Bert seems a little pale this morning; not quite his hearty, vigorous self. He has not joined in the laughter and talk about the breakfast table as he usually does. And I wish Kyra Stamata were not polishing her copper pot. Polishing it carefully, as if it had been used. And I wonder why Aretoúla is so gay and laughing; I had thought she would be sad for Ronnie’s going.
But they are calling me now; Bert himself is calling me. We must start.
Night again: We are back in Kyra Stamata’s cottage. That is, two of us are back. Bert is dead.
We walked all morning, down the steep mountain roads that Kyra Stamata had told us of. And he complained of hunger, of a queer feeling of emptiness. “Like as if I was hollow inside,” he said once. He, the strong man, was as ready as Ronnie to rest, when we sat down at noon.
We did not dare eat much; we did not know how long the food Kyra Stamata had given us might have to last. And Bert was ravenous. After he had eaten he rose and walked over toward a little mountain stream that foamed about a hundred yards from us.
“Water ain’t my choice of a drink, but maybe it’ll fill me up some. I don’t know what ails me, anyway. The old lady’s wine must have given me a funny kind of hangover.”
He drank. I was beside him; I saw his throat move as the wa ter went down. And then I heard him gasp; saw the red ribbon spring out again, across his chest. He fell forward, with his face in the torrent. Ronnie and I pulled him out together.
Ronnie thinks it must have been a haemorrhage; some lesion caused by all the fatigue of our wanderings, begun again too soon. There was a little blood on his mouth; Ronnie thinks it must have fallen from there to his chest, that shows no wound. But there was not much blood anywhere. I cannot help thinking of a sponge that has been squeezed . . .
And while we were dragging the body up the bank Ronnie’s leg crumpled under him. I had to go back to the cottage and get the women to come and help me. With Ronnie; with Bert’s body. So we are back here – back, I had almost said, where it all happened.
But there is no danger. There can be no danger. What I saw last night was a dream. Bert’s illness and death were a coincidence. I will not insult, even in thought, women who have been kind to me; who have risked their lives to help me, as all Cretans risk their lives when they help Allied soldiers now. I will not let myself go mad.
I will not remember blood running down the sides of a copper pot . . .
* * *
15th Aug: I have let the weeks pass by as in a trance; I have not even written in this journal. I was ill for awhile, and Kyra Stamata nursed me as tenderly as if she had been my mother. And sometimes Ronnie and Aretoúla would tiptoe in, hand in hand, and smile down at me . . . They are happy. Perhaps Bert was right, and one should never try to prevent happiness. It may indeed be all that these war-united youngsters will ever have.
I do not sleep well. Kyra Stamata has noticed it, and has brewed potions of herbs for me to drink. I try to throw them out when she is not looking, for somehow at night I am afraid to sleep. Full of fancies; not sane and reasonable as I am by day.
But she watches me too closely; it is becoming harder and harder to get chances to empty the stuff out. I suppose she thinks I do not like the taste of it, and has a womanly determina tion to help me against my will. So often I have to fall into sleep as a man might fall over a precipice; passing blindly, in blind terror, into oblivion.
16th Aug: Morning again, the good, bright morning, wholesome as fresh bread. It shows one how foolish are night terrors, the grisly shadows childhood leaves in every man’s brain. Ronnie and Aretoúla are laughing outside the window; young wholesome laugh ter. Her laugh is as tender as any woman’s could be, and yet it never loses that shrill sweet note that is a little wild; the note that sounds like a bird . . .
There! He has caught her, and they are kissing. Their lips are too busy for laughter now. Too sweetly busy. Her arms are tight about his neck, with that hungry, enfolding tightness they seem to have at times. She loves him.
I do not know why I am afraid, even at night. For Bert knew nothing; he did not wake. And I will never see that happen to Ronnie. They will take me before they will take him, because Aretoúla still loves him. And when his turn does come he, too, will know nothing. We will not suffer; men die far worse deaths on the battlefield.
And yet—
I will tear this page out. It is lunacy, madness as great as Aretoúla’s great-grandmother’s.
* * *
17th Aug: Today Kyra Stamata said that she was feeling ill and sent Ronnie and me out onto the mountain to look for more of a certain herb she wanted to dose herself with. Aretoúla, she said, must stay with her. Ronnie and I wandered far afield; we were never able to find any herb to match the sample she had given us.
When we came back there seemed to be tension between the two women. Kyra Stamata looked well enough, but Aretoúla was white and her eyes look red, as if from weeping. All evening she has been very quiet. Ronnie is much concerned; he makes more fuss over a cut finger of Aretoúla’s than he would if he broke his own arm. All trivial, no doubt; women’s squabbles. The best of them will do it. And yet my nerves respond to any tension now, like race-horses to a cut of the whip. I can feel them tensing; feel fear shooting through them, as electricity shoots through wires.
One good thing: when Kyra Stamata gave me my nightly sleeping-draught, she forgot to look at me. She was staring at Aretoúla, who was staring at Ronnie, and I poured the drug quietly into the embers of the fire.
Kyra Stamata remembered me after a moment. She looked at me and smiled. “An empty cup already? Good. You will sleep well, soldier. You must sleep very well and grow strong again; very strong. We have all been worrying about you long enough, soldier. Long enough.”
18th Aug: This may be the last entry I shall ever make in this diary; I think that probably it will be.
I did not sleep last night. I closed my eyes and lay still; I breathed regularly, as I have trained myself to do, when Kyra Stamata bent above me. I could see her through my eyelashes as a shadow, as a black vulture’s shadow, when she bent . . .
But then perhaps I did fall asleep. For the next thing I knew I heard Aretoúla’s voice:
“See, I have the knife, Grandmother. Let us eat; let us eat and drink tonight.”
My eyes opened; saw the flash of the knife in her hand. And shut again; faintness took me. Once more I could not move.
Then I heard the old woman laugh; shrill, cackling laughter.
“As you will, granddaughter. As you will.”
I felt the cold chill of steel as Aretoúla set it, ever so gently, against my throat.
“Surely he will be enough for this time, Grandmother. Let us eat of him, let us eat and drink of him tonight. Let me show you how well I can cut his throat. I have never killed before; I have fed – yes, feasted – but I have never killed.”
Kyra Stamata laughed again, more loudly; harsh shrill laughter like the screech of a bird.
“You think that will show me your strength, girl? You think I will feed on that weakling, who cannot grow strong again, no matter how well I nurse him? No! He dies only that we may be rid of him. It is your lover that we will feed on, child. Tonight, or tomorrow night, as you choose.”
There was silence a moment. Then Aretoúla said eagerly: “He is not so strong, either. He has been hurt; and he is slight – as slightly built as this one.” She did not move the knife from my throat.
“But young and healthy, girl; healthy enough to please you. You have made him happy, you have made him strong. And we have kept him long enough; I am hungry.”
Aretoúla did not answer at once. For a second the knife pressed closer against my throat. Then she lowered it. Slo
wly, I could tell; reluctantly. Her grandmother’s derisive cackle came again.
“What! Have you lost your taste for your first kill, girl? Will you let him live?”
Aretoúla said sullenly: “You have promised me one more night. And if he should see this man dead tomorrow my Ronnie would grieve. He would not think only of me. Tomorrow night, before the dawn comes, I will kill him; I will kill them both, if you wish it. But not tonight.”
She went away then. Back to the inner room that she shares with Ronnie now. Kyra Stamata fell asleep again; I heard her deep, regu lar breathing; I thought of creeping toward her quietly, there where she lay curled on her pallet by the hearth. Of putting my hands a bout her skinny old throat.
What a pity that her father and brother did not let her mother kill her – put out of the world the monstrosity she had brought into it! But they saved her – saved her to be their own destroy er, and now ours! No doubt they thought, poor fools, that they were protecting innocence; no doubt she was young and lovely then, like Aretoúla.
Like Aretoúla!
Twice I did creep toward the hag. But each time she woke and stirred; each time I dropped back quickly. Her senses have indeed the sharpness of a bird’s.
Through the rest of the night she lay in peaceful sleep, and I lay thinking. Thinking and fearing, hating and shuddering, and trying to plan.
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