Cretan Teat

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘Don’t bother him, Archie. Let him chat up that Swedish chick. She looks nice. They are just being happy.’

  Langstreet asked why she should imagine he was going to bother his son. He knew Cliff had to work fast, since they planned to sail eastwards on the morrow. Not that he greatly approved of such behaviour, but he recognised that the younger generation was freer in its sexual attitudes. Kathi, listening to this, bit her lower lip.

  He gave his wife a frowning smile before turning towards the town, making off with his legal papers tucked under his arm. Kathi finished drying herself, applied Nivea Sun Lotion SPF 16 to her body, put on dark glasses, and settled down on her beach mat. She lay there crucified by the afternoon sun.

  The little rent-a-car shop in the main street had a potted palm tree behind its plate glass front and only one car remaining for hire; a Fiat Punto, two years old. Langstreet took it. He considered the hire price absurdly cheap.

  The engine sounded tuneful as he gradually accelerated. The outskirts of Paleohora fell away, giving place to olive groves in which goats roamed, followed by stands of bamboo. As the Fiat began to climb, these tokens of fertility died away. Soon he was driving among almost barren hillsides. Paleohora’s isolation was written in rock.

  No houses or villages clung to the winding kilometres. No traffic crawled along the road. No one walked here. Langstreet became bored. When he reached a lone village, sprouting ramshackle from the crotch of a steep bend, he did not consider it worth his stopping. After an hour, he drove into a small town lonely in the wild hillsides, which signs announced as Kyriotisa. Here he stopped. Consulting his map, he saw how Kyriotisa marked a geographical disposition. The way he had come was the descent towards the sea; the way ahead was the ascent towards Hania, the towns of the north Cretan coast and, at a greater distance, the great urgent world of Europe. Kyriotisa was where it was for good geological reasons.

  He climbed from the car, and stretched. He was cramped and felt rather irritable.

  It seemed as if Kyriotisa were having a nap, by way of celebrating the sun’s passage from azimuth. A garage and service station stood at one end of the main street, to all appearances closed. The main street presented a dead, greyish appearance, although the shops were open. A dog crossed the road with infinite leisure. Billboards displayed rather faded advertisements for Coca Cola, brands of cigarettes, mobile phones, and Nentelstam Milk for Infants. On higher ground, behind the buildings lining the street, Langstreet could see the dome of an Orthodox church. Despite this token of higher authority, the town appeared to Langstreet to lie under a deadening materialism, the banal everyday. He took a turn up the street, observing that the town was built about a road that went in a great curve to avoid a severe drop into a valley. Behind Kyriotisa, hills rose almost immediately.

  Entering a nearby taverna, he ordered a coffee, enquiring whether anyone spoke English who might lead him to old Byzantine churches in the district, as mentioned in his guide book. The waiter who served him with a cup and biscuit was a man with a grand moustache, his wrinkled face much resembling the bark of an old olive tree. He eyed Langstreet closely.

  ‘You are Germany?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m English. Do you speak English?’

  The waiter still looked dissatisfied. Raising a hand in a ‘wait and see’ gesture, he wandered into the street.

  Langstreet drank his coffee, with pauses between sips. The taverna was completely deserted except for an old lady who sat in shadow, unmoving behind a counter.

  The silence was broken when the waiter returned with a black-clad monk. The monk was corpulent, not particularly tall, his round weather-beaten face fringed by white stubble. Langstreet rose and gave him a slight bow.

  ‘You speak English, sir?’

  ‘You are from Germany?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m from England, although I do in fact work in Germany. Germany and Switzerland. I am an official of WHO, the World Health Organisation. I am here on holiday. Why do you ask me that question?’

  ‘The Germans were here many years and destroyed this place.’

  ‘I can’t help that. I’m English, as I’ve already told this waiter here.’ Langstreet stood stiff and formal, looking slightly down on the monk.

  ‘Then what can I do for you, sir?’ The monk’s expression relaxed as he asked the question. He moved a step nearer Langstreet’s table, resting a hand on it, as though he found its weight a burden.

  ‘I understand from my guide book that there are several old Byzantine churches hereabouts. I wonder if you could guide me to some of them? I have a car outside.’

  ‘They are only very small churches, very old, very small,’ said the monk with grave courtesy, as if he felt personally responsible for their shrinkage. ‘They have no merit of architecture. Not a one can hardly be worth your visit.’ When he saw that this statement made no great impression on Langstreet, the monk gestured to him to sit at the table again. He then took the chair on the opposite side of the table, saying, ‘Yes, I will show to you some churches. We are glad to assist our English visitors. First you must know some facts about this place, Kyriotisa. Then you will understand more.’

  He motioned to the waiter with a gesture of dismissal, speaking sharply in Greek, the results of which were that the waiter left, to return some while later with two cups of coffee and two glasses of water on a tin tray.

  The monk now clasped his heavy hands together on the table, hunched his upper body over them and began a long account. Most of the while, he stared down at the grain of the table, looking up sharply now and again to make sure that Langstreet was attending.

  He claimed that Kyriotisa had once been a wealthy place. Its olive groves had made it rich. Its olive oil was regarded as the best in the Empire (by which Langstreet understood him to mean the Byzantine Empire). Its wealthier families were thereby enabled to build their own private churches in which to worship God. Often they built these churches in their own olive groves, the trees of which were sacred.

  This was a happy period of calm and prosperity.

  Worse times followed. Vendettas broke out among some families. Morality declined. Times were uncertain. A variety of rulers presided over the fate of trade. Also, there came a plague. The wealth all disappeared. The monk waved his chubby hands in dismissal of this vague period of history.

  And then the war! Germans came and times were very bad, with many good people killed.

  The monk looked up sharply at Langstreet. ‘Many good people killed,’ he repeated. ‘A very cruel time.’

  Time, Langstreet thought, when the arrival of another customer and the greetings this entailed brought a momentary pause in the monk’s account, had somehow been squeezed from the narrative. The days of the Paleologues and the Venetians, the Ottomans and the Nazis, were all part of a seamless cloak of disaster. Only the uniforms changed.

  According to the monk, the Nazis descended in strength on Kyriotisa by parachute.

  ‘From the planes passing over they come.’ He drew pictures in the air above his head with those same heavy hands.

  The partisans fired on the invaders as they descended. The Germans exacted terrible retribution. People were shot indiscriminately, even children and women. The monk had been just a boy at the time. He had taken food up into the mountains to feed the partisans who lived up there. He remembered it well, going to the back door of the taverna, through the kitchen, to point to one of the mountains he’d had to climb.

  He beckoned Langstreet to stand by him.

  ‘There, you see? That one. I climb it once a week when I am young, with a loaf of bread underneath my shirt.’

  His account of youthful heroism went on and on. The afternoon was growing late. Langstreet politely concealed his impatience.

  As a reprisal for local resistance, the German soldiers had set fire to the houses of the village. Women, children and the sick had been sheltering inside the houses. All died. The fires could be seen up in the mountains where the partisans
hid.

  The partisans set a trap. They lured a German patrol to follow them into the mountains. The patrol was ambushed. The soldiers were made to jump, or were thrown, into a great cavity in the ground. Their cries were greeted with rejoicing by the partisans.

  After three days, one of the local men was lowered on a rope to see if he could rescue some of the German weapons. The rope was old. It broke. The partisan fell on the bodies below. Some of the Germans were still alive, although their legs and heads were broken. They rose up and seized hold of the man. He shot them all.

  The priest had many more tales of this sort. Langstreet felt sick and glanced at his watch, quickly, when the monk was gazing down at the table.

  The Nazi commandant of the area had been a terrifying man. He rode about on a dapple stallion. He would execute locals arbitrarily, without trial. One day, a partisan sniper shot him. The partisans then wrote to Nazi HQ, explaining that they had shot the commandant because he was extremely evil and cruel, and that they hoped there would be no reprisals. The HQ had evidently formed the same opinion of their commandant: no reprisals followed his death.

  Langstreet was finally moved to speak. ‘This was all a long while ago, of course. Half a century. Things are very different now.’

  ‘Not here!’ The monk grasped Langstreet’s wrist. ‘Kyriotisa does not forget,’ he said. He picked up the story again. ‘After the war, in the early sixties, the Germans they come back again. This time, a very different crowd of them. This time, they wear suits, not uniforms.’ He laughed, revealing his old yellowed teeth. ‘To make up for what they do, they rebuild on a more grand scale the houses they destroy in the war. They build a good main road, and build a bridge over the river. They also build the large war memorial down the street, denouncing Nazi atrocities and listing the heroic dead among our partisans.’

  At this point, the monk went into an exact description of the war memorial. He said that the inscription carved in the stone concerned the complete destruction of the town, which the Nazis had inflicted as a reprisal for the death of a few German soldiers.

  ‘In fact, the post-war Germans gave back to Kyriotisa more than they ever take away. A ceremony was held, with a band from Frankfurt, when they left. Not one inhabitant of Kyriotisa waved or clapped or cheered them. So the Germans were forced to leave in silence.’

  Langstreet looked challengingly at the monk. ‘So, no gratitude from Kyriotisa, then? After an unrivalled and generous act of restitution? Why was that, do you think?’

  The monk made a face, spreading his hands in dismissal.

  ‘You must not think us to be unkind people. They did not gave us back our dead, did they? Or our lost limbs? Good riddance to them, I say.’

  Langstreet stood up. He gave a slight bow, looking grim. ‘Thank you for the coffee. I shall return to Paleohora immediately and not come back to Kyriotisa, thank you.’

  ‘What’s the matter? You don’t wish to see the little chapels? Do you wish to see the war memorial?’

  ‘I hate all this talk of war. It was over half a century ago, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Not for us, no. My father they shoot him in the back. My brother remains injured and is half-mad. I myself had to carry bread up that mountain in fear of – ’

  ‘Yes, yes, you told me about that. I’m sorry for you.’

  The monk gave a sly smile. ‘Sorry, eh? Well, you didn’t do it. I just show you one little chapel. Quite near here. Don’t be upset. You’re British, aren’t you? The British helped us in the war.’

  While he was speaking, the monk was edging through the door into the street, holding Langstreet’s sleeve with one hand while gesticulating towards his car with the other.

  Telling himself to be calm, to see what he had come to see, Langstreet unlocked the car door and let the monk settle himself in the front passenger seat. He started the engine.

  This passage seems to reveal something of the trauma existing in the town, as well as something of Archie Langstreet’s character, without labouring the point too greatly. It is a tenet of his morality to believe that when forgiveness is sought, it should be given. Now I have to get him to see the painting of Agia Anna, where his response will be very different from mine. He is not a shallow man, not like me.

  After Boris and I had seen Agia Anna, we travelled by bus back to our hotel, where we had a drink together. To be honest, we had a titter at the thought of the Virgin Mary running out of milk. After which, I hastened up to my room to have a shower, followed by plenty of talcum powder. At my age, there’s always a suspicion that you may smell unpleasant.

  I made a note about a possible story. It unfolded as I wrote. My main preoccupation was to meet up again with Ingrid that evening. Ingrid was a Danish lady of uncertain age, staying in the hotel with her daughter, Lisa. The daughter, a woman in her late thirties, was recovering from some kind of nervous breakdown. My sights, however, were set upon the mother, the amusing and civilised Ingrid Gustaffsdotter.

  How was it that I sensed no sexual interest in the younger woman, and plenty in her mother? I suspected this inherited detection system – a cunning mixture of pheromones and body language, for a start – must have developed many generations earlier in human history.

  Boris cleared off into town, disappearing with his usual brand of glum cheer. I settled down to wait in a comfortable wicker chair for Ingrid’s return from the beach. I read a page or two of the novel I had brought on holiday with me. The novel, as if it matters to you, was by Arturo Perez-Reverte, entitled The Victor Hugo Club.

  Ingrid and I had met at a nightclub the previous evening. A rather sly little friendship had developed. I loved her perfect English, spoken with that alluring accent. While I did not particularly wish Boris to know of this liaison, Ingrid seemed determined to keep it a secret from Lisa. Some recent incident, of which Ingrid would not speak, had upset this eldest daughter of hers. She also had two younger daughters in Denmark. They were safe in the care of an aunt. It was Lisa who most required her mother’s protection.

  Ingrid showed up at about four-thirty, immaculate in a pale green linen suit, with a wide-brimmed white linen hat. She wore sandals; her toenails were painted green. I put my novel aside and ordered us a bottle of wine.

  We had a sophisticated way of courting each other, she and I; for Ingrid was a professor of English Literature at Copenhagen University.

  So it was, over our glasses of Chardonnay, I quoted to her:

  Cupid’s an infernal God and underground With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound: Men to such gods their sacrificing coals Did not in altars lay, but pits and holes.

  She was quick to respond, from that same naughty Donne:

  Rich nature hath in women wisely made Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid: They then, which to the lower tribute owe, That way which that exchequer looks must go.

  Such exchanges caused a stirring below the little wrought iron tabletop. As we talked, I became convinced that this lady, with her pink gums and pearly teeth, was deserving of what a lady novelist of my acquaintance genteelly calls, ‘a kiss between the legs’.

  As we were growing cosier in our conversation, seeing Lisa approaching, Ingrid said hastily, ‘Climb over my balcony tonight – I’ll be in my room waiting for you. I must take care that Lisa does not know of this.’

  It can be imagined with what a fever I lurked in my room later that evening. I took a shower to cleanse and cool myself. I put on shirt and trousers. Ah, my dainty dirty-minded Danish dove, I may be getting on in years, but I am inventive and know more than one way to please you and surprise you. How are you feeling now? What do you hope for? What do you expect? It is entirely ready for you.

  My room was next to Lisa’s; then came Ingrid’s room. Our rooms looked out on the Libyan Sea. Each had a balcony. Since the rooms were not large, the balconies almost touched each other; there was no danger involved in climbing from one to the next. I had only to cross Lisa’s to reach Ingrid’s.

  Some minutes af
ter eleven-thirty, I judged Lisa to be asleep. High with expectation, I went onto my balcony. The sea glittered under a moon shining high behind the hotel. What a night for love! Ingrid was old and soft and affectionate. I could imagine no greater bliss than to lie in her embrace! I went to the iron railing. I lifted my leg to swing it over.

  Unfortunately, my damned leg was too stiff to reach the required level. I wrenched at the stupid thing. A bone creaked. It would not go. The first inkling of cramp warned me to cease my useless efforts.

  I stood there in the shadows, out of breath.

  How maddening to be thwarted by one’s own limb! I had forgotten it was seventy years old. Even the independent-minded member nearby was more loyal to its master…

  The furniture of the balcony consisted of a metal table and two metal chairs. As quietly as I could, I drew up one of the chairs, setting its back against the balcony rail. I climbed on to it.

  The chair tipped.

  I fell back. The chair toppled sideways with a clatter. With an even louder clatter, the table I struck with my shoulder capsized. I could hear the noise of it rushing down the street and out to sea, to alarm the fishermen at their nets.

  Immediately, a light came on in Lisa’s room.

  Fatally injured though I was, I crawled away into my room, dragging my legs behind me, concealing myself just as Lisa came rushing out on her balcony.

  Lying mute on the floor, clutching my knee, I heard her call her mother. Ingrid arrived on her balcony and the two exclaimed in Danish. By the tone of Ingrid’s voice, I could tell she was soothing her daughter: ‘Not a burglar, dear, merely a cat…’

  Eventually, they both went back to their beds.

  Eventually, I crawled into my bed. Well, there, I am seventy. What do you expect? Sometimes, ideas of romance outlive the anatomy.

  Sprawled on the bed in total darkness, I found cause to reflect – as everyone must do at some time or another – that life, which seems so full of opportunities, denies us too much, whatever we do or refrain from doing, or find ourselves incapable of doing.

  Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we enjoy reading novels: there, in the secrecy of their pages, we find persons who defy life and do those things – grand, awful, delectable, or trivial – which we have denied ourselves, or have been denied. You don’t imagine that in a fiction I would have been unable to negotiate a balcony or two, do you?