by Nike Azoros
While the workers were there they also laid a speaker system. Nikos had already known the influence music had on the psyche. The minister had kindly sent over a diverse collection of music. When they were working on the rebuild they played lively Mozart. At night it was the peaceful strains of Bach.
All the patients with trade skills were provided with the tools they needed to carry out their work again. The blacksmith got his anvil and tongs. The dressmakers and tailors got sewing machines and fabrics. Overnight almost the ragged clothes disappeared and the lepers had good clothes again. Nikos spent every moment when not supervising the changes, reading Plato, Thales and Solon too, for timeless and relevant guidance on the running of a city state. His was sitting in his study when he was interrupted by a couple of the female patients who requested to see him.
‘Eh Mr. Nikos, we want to talk to you.’
‘How can I help you ladies?’
‘Mr. Nikos we want to make a suggestion to you. We want to operate a business too as we use to in our old lives when we were in health.’ The two women looked at each other when Nikos raised an eyebrow in question. They exhaled sharply and continued,
‘We offer services to men in exchange for money.’
‘We can do it in secret or we can do it in the manner of the ancients as you are so intent in replicating. In those cultures it was understood that physical love was a very normal part of life, we even had a goddess devoted to it. Maybe you have forgotten but before you came here the men were lawless. They would attack the women. Because all hope was abandoned any pleasure was sought after, they would jump on us in the streets and rut like animals. Providing pleasure for one’s body should always be done in dignity and in private and if there is no willing partner then we will provide one, for a fee.’
‘We request from you one of the houses that are being restored to become a house of Aphrodite so we can make a living and the men of Spinalonga get the release they need.’
‘If you allow us to do so we will show our gratitude by offering our services to you at any time, free of charge.’
‘But just for you, don’t go telling anyone.’
Nikos was twenty one when he was diagnosed and for four years before that he had been consumed by study. He had never even had a steady girlfriend. All his time on Spinalonga had been spent lobbying for the rights and conditions of his fellow sufferers. He was also stung with the painful reminder that the sweet Athena lay in some sort of catatonia ever since Pavlos carried out his terrible abuse. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if he had regular sexual release.
‘The world’s oldest profession, here on Spinalonga?’ His fellow students at university had often gone to visit the brothels for some release after exams but he never had the money to spare so would always pretend to be busy when he was asked to join them. Now he was just struck dumb. He found himself incapable of the logical, studied conversation with which he was associated. The two whores picked it up right away. They were the ones now in control of this exchange and they zoomed in to close the deal. ‘You are still handsome Nikos, your mouth is still good. Do you think we still look good?’
Nikos looked at the two women, the whores, Stella and Susan. They were hideous. Stella was fat and Susan was ugly and fat. The whore Susan, who was ugly and had a rump as big as wheelbarrow causing her to have a rolling walk, sat behind him to cradle him in her arms while Stella straddled him.
‘You look very good.’ He mumbled, horrified that he had even said it but he was not interested in their unattractive faces and forms but in the fact they were letting him use them. He was becoming hard and was powerless to control it. Stella felt the movement and nestled herself onto him as she unbuttoned her shirt to expose her cleavage, it was not as full and luscious as it once was but there was still plenty of flesh there for a man to play with. She leant forward till her breasts were right in his sight. The other whore took his hands in hers and brought them up to cup her breasts and fondle them.
Stella smiled at him ‘Yes squeeze them Nikos, I love that. Go on, have a taste, give them a little kiss.’
His mouth was already open with wanting and the whore behind him took his head between her hands and guided his mouth so he could suckle on them but Stella was a very experienced whore, she knew a first timer when she saw one.
‘Eh Nikos, do you need a little bit of assistance?’ She put her hand down his trousers, her warm touch made him spring from firm to hard.
‘Oh no you don’t.’ She pushed him back down onto his bed, ‘Now Nikos, let us introduce you to some of the services we will be offering at our establishment and you tell me whether or not you think it would be a good thing for the men of Spinalonga.’ She couldn’t talk any more, she had her mouth full of Nikos. Susan joined her and Nikos looked down to watch the two women at work with their mouths till they felt him ready to burst, Stella the fat whore lay down and Susan the ugly whore guided Nikos into Stella for him to finish his first experience.
For Nikos it was like medicine, a therapy that gave benefit to his every cell. He released all his pent up passions into the two whores and they enjoyed seeing their skills appreciated by a young man with a fine mind and a still good body. The trouble was they were both so dog ugly Nikos had to keep his eyes shut the entire time the sluts were anywhere near him. They on the other hand were glowing like new brides.
Nikos granted them permission to have a house for their enterprise to be carried out without harassment and the girls showed their gratitude to him over and over and over again, but in the dark.
Chapter 16: Lyras and his Horse
In a village high over Chania there was a young man named Telemachus who liked playing the lyre more than he liked talking to people. He would stare out over the sea and wished he would find a peaceful place where he would be able to sit and play his lyre all day without interruption. But he did love living on an island. Island life was very beautiful. But Crete was too big. He wished he had his own island where the sea was even closer all around him.
The sea breezes would keep his fingers on the strings and he never got tired of playing. There was majesty in the sea, no wonder it deserved to have its very own god and its very own saint. Often he would go to the church of Saint Nikolas, the patron saint of sailors to light a candle and then he would dedicate a tune to Poseidon, that way all the divinities would give their blessings for the sweetest of music. His parents were of the very aggressive western islanders who loved to embroil themselves in vendettas. His clan was at odds with another clan and even taking a few melons to market turned out to be an ordeal of dodging bullets.
His life was full of restriction, his sisters had it easier for they got to carry out their chores in the peace of the home. Telemachus had envy for the chores of women. They were meaningful and creative. He would watch his mother spin the wool of their sheep and then as deftly as Zeus threw thunderbolts she would take sticks and click them together and then like magic, from them would grow a garment.
He loved watching his sisters take flour and baptize it then massage the gluggy mass tenderly until it relaxed so much it could be rolled and stretched out into silky sheets so thin he could see the pattern of the tablecloth through them. From those stretched silken sheets his sisters would make the lightest, most delicious pastries in all of Crete. Women were the miracle makers of the world no doubt. Staying in the cool peace of the courtyard while he played his lyre and help his mother and sisters create their little daily miracles was how Telemachus wanted to spend all his days. His father and two brothers seemed to want to spend all of theirs riding around looking for opposing clan members to shoot.
The way Telemachus saw things men were the destroyers of the world and women were the creators. He also noted that when a man goes out looking for trouble he always finds it, whereas a woman will go out looking for how to make something beautiful either for her home, her family or herself. He wouldn’t even join the men at the local kafenio, there were no women there.
Tel
emachus was never taught how to create the types of daily miracles the women of his clan made but he did have something of his own he could create. He could make music. Telemachus could play the lyre like an angel. If he wasn’t sitting watching the women he was playing his lyre, he played it so much it that people stopped calling him Telemachus and would call him the lyre player and eventually they just called him by the name of the instrument, Lyras.
He had learnt quickly how music affected the moods of people. When he played with aggressive intention the men would jump up and stamp out the most powerful martial dance of all, the pentozali. He sometimes would deliberately do that to get their blood boiling and have them mount their horses and ride to other towns to make trouble, just so he could have the house to himself.
At other times he would play the slower more peaceful tunes that would cause all to stand and do a slumberous syrto, the dragging dances which caused the overly macho men of his clan to step themselves into sedation. But his brothers and his father would taunt him, ‘Eh Lyras, we need to find you a woman, you are married to that thing.’
Lyras had a dream that one day he would be able to do nothing but sit with the winds and play his music all day. Once in the day of his Pappou there had been a dispute about which sheep belonged to which clan. Both sides made accusations and shots were fired leaving one person from each clan dead. Logic and civility did not reign instead the madness of the vendetta became law. There was never any peace. Even his beloved sisters and mother would tell him he must be more active in his hatred of the other clans.
‘I don’t want to be active in hatred, I want to make music. I want to feel happy.’ Telemachus’ father was devastated that a son of his would not want to kill a man. It was his birthright to slaughter offenders. ‘But they haven’t offended me, or you. They might have said something to a Pappou one hundred years ago. It is not our family honor we defend. You defend someone else’s honor, not that of our family.’
‘What is that you say?’ All his family took one step toward him. ‘I read the books in school. I studied our histories, we have the best history why do we adopt the history of others?’
His father looked at him as if he was confused, ‘Have you been in the sun too long again, didn’t I always tell you to stay in the shade in the heat of the day.’
‘No, I am speaking from facts.’ He sighed, ‘You are simply carrying on a cruel tradition picked up from a foreign occupying force that our ancestors found to be powerful and intimidating and, due to their lack of education, chose to emulate that style in the misguided hope that it would make them too appear formidable but all it did was explode into a pointless chain of murders. You may continue to live a brutal life dedicated to reprisals in the style of the Venetian overlords, I will not.’
‘What did he say?’ asked one brother.
‘I think he said we are uneducated,’ said one brother. Another one said ‘I think he just called us Italians.’ His father stepped forward. ‘The only reason you are still breathing is because you are my son. You are speaking soft, like an easterner, maybe you belong there.’
‘That is the most logical thing I have ever heard you say. You are right, maybe I belong there.’
Already Lyras had spoken more words to them today than he had in his entire life and he did not want to say any more. He could no longer stay within this stifling and destructive environment. He mounted his other love, his buckskin stallion, Xanthus, hung his lyre over his shoulder and rode east, as east as one could go on Crete, to Elounda.
The poetic looking man riding a blonde horse and wearing the full black garb of the Western Cretan drew a lot of attention at the taverna. Lyras dismounted and sat to order a coffee and the owner asked, ‘What brings you here? Running from some vendetta?’
‘No not from one vendetta, from all of them. I seek peace and a place to play my lyre.’
The locals admired his powerful horse and gave Lyras work carrying goods up to the smaller villages higher up in the mountains. He made enough to live on and was able to spend every spare moment playing his haunting tunes. The locals liked his music, but they only wanted to hear it when it suited them such as weddings or name days. They got upset if he played during siesta or when there was a backgammon game going on in the taverna.
Lyras chose to stop speaking, he let his music speak for him but having his times of when to play music restricted made him very unhappy. One of the locals sitting at the taverna noticed, ‘Eh Lyras why is your face on the floor, Eh? Why don’t you go to Spinalonga, the lepers could use some sweet music, you will have all the peace you want there.’ The man said it as the typical wisecrack but Lyras was already on his way to the dock to worry about answering him. He was done with talking anyway. He’d done enough for one lifetime. But he did have a few more words to say, to the boatman.
‘Can you take my horse and me to Spinalonga?’ He handed over 200 drachmas.
‘My friend, for 200 drachmas I will carry you over on my back if you want.’
The boatman took the wad of notes to count them out, nodded his satisfaction and pulled out the ramp so Xanthus could be led on board. Lyras sat and played to keep his horse calm and the boatman knew to take them around to the other entrance, not to Dante’s gate. ‘Here you go my friend, enjoy your island holiday.’ The boatman pulled out the ramp again and Lyras led Xanthus off and looked around him. He felt the sea air caress his hair in thanks for bringing music to Spinalonga.
That morning Maria was lying on the quilt on the floor of her room. Sometimes she was sure she could feel the life oozing out of her. She had a small mirror but she never looked in it. She wondered if she still looked like a woman or if her hair still shone like satin as it once did. She wanted to feel like a woman again, she started to think to herself but stopped when she was struck by the reality that she had never really lived as a woman. She came to Spinalonga as a girl and within months was now an old woman.
She needed some air. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and went out to stroll along the shores of Spinalonga and let herself think of things she had tried to not think about. As tended to be the usual pattern her thoughts went not to the things she had done in her life, but to things she had not done and now never would.
First she let the pain of the obvious omissions pierce her heart as she often now did. She welcomed the sharp pangs of helpless lament. It caused an anger that invigorated her. Why was she chosen by God to never know a husbands’ embrace or the sweet pain of childbirth that the women of the town often spoke off. The pain that makes you feel your body is being torn in two and then never truly heals so whenever your child is away from you it feels as if a part of you is missing.
Maria released those thoughts, such was her fate but when her thoughts turned to the limitations placed upon her by the unwritten laws of society that was when true rage rose within her.
She would have liked to have known what love was like. Not romantic love but true passionate, physical love. She would have liked to have gone hunting with the men. She had once asked to join them but was slapped hard by an uncle who yelled at her that ladies belonged within the courtyard. She recalled watching the men ride off to hunt and feeling a slight envy, she had always wanted to ride a horse. She had always wanted to ride a horse with the men but was told the only women who sit astride horses were gypsies and loose women. She had to remain content with being permitted to sit sideways on the pack donkey once.
She wanted to feel a man’s arms around her, she wanted to feel her breasts swell with milk and feel her child suckle from her. She wanted to leave something behind in this world. She wanted to know she offered something and that her life had not been a waste.
She remembered one time when she was out strolling in her old neighborhood. She had looked into the window of one of the houses as one does when out walking. It was human nature to look at other people and into their windows. Maria had known this and always made sure that their own windows, when open, framed a bowl of flowe
rs or a beautiful object so that when someone looked in they would smile because they had seen beauty. She had looked into the neighbor’s window one time, at afternoon siesta. The window was curtained but the breeze caused the lacy wings to billow in and Maria caught a glimpse of what was happening inside. They were naked on the bed. The woman was straddling her husband as one would ride a horse and was looking down at him with a haughty desire. The husband was looking up at her in sheer rapture.
Maria looked away quickly moved on but the image of the lovers never left her. She had wanted to be naked with a man and now she never would. Her short life had been devoted to carrying out the will of others, all for nothing. How lovely it would have been to be with a man and have his baby, and to have ridden a horse. She had wandered long enough, it was time to head back. She turned around before she walked back into the town to take another look at the mainland to transmit her love for her mother across the water. Maria had to look again, in case her weakening eyes were mocking her, and saw a horse standing on the waves.
Maria kept watching as she saw the boat come into view. It moored briefly for the horse to clamber up the boat ramp. A man followed looked like he belonged in one of the paintings by El Greco Nikos had shown her pictures of in his books. He had a lyre hanging from his shoulder. He steadied his horse, grabbed the bridle and took a slow survey of the area.
Maria caught her breath. He had seen her. He stared straight at her and walked to her. She couldn’t move. She panicked. She couldn’t even lift her hand to straighten her hair. How must she look? It was too late he was now standing a metre from her and the horse was right behind him nuzzling into his shoulder.
‘Welcome and not welcome,’ was all she could get out.
Lyras could see that the woman before him was a young and lovely in spite of her dry skin and mouth already beginning to turn down on one side. Lyras looked at her face and saw the generations of wounded women before her. Only women could carry wounds well, men did not know how to manage pain other than to either drown it in drink or drown it out with noise. Women embraced their pain and made it part of them. Maria knew she looked wounded so she did not have to keep any pain in her heart.