Here and there in the distance was the white cube of a house or the shape of a donkey, so grey and still that it might have been turned to stone like everything else in that depressing landscape which, although scarcely likely to raise the spirits of one who had every reason to regard herself as a prisoner, nevertheless exerted a curious fascination over Marianne: so much so that she jumped when she heard Sappho's calm voice behind her.
'If you would care to join us,' the voice was saying, 'this is the time for us to salute the sun… Dress yourself.'
She held out a tunic like the ones Marianne had already seen on the other girls, with a pair of sandals and a fillet for her hair.
'I should like to wash,' Marianne said. 'I have never felt so dirty.'
'Of course. Wait, I will bring water for you.'
She was back in a moment with a full bucket which she set down on the worn flagstones. In her other hand she had a piece of soap and a towel.
'I cannot let you have any more,' she said, apologetically. 'Water is very scarce here because we must rely on the rain to fill our cisterns, and when summer comes, the level drops very quickly.'
'The people here must suffer greatly then…'
Sappho gave her the quick smile which conferred such charm on her rather austere face.
'Less than you think. They are not over fond of washing and, as for drinking, we have plenty of wine. It would not occur to anyone to drink water. Hurry, now. I will wait outside. By the way, do you speak any tongue besides your own?'
'Yes. I speak English, German, Italian, Spanish, and I was taught ancient Greek…'
Sappho grimaced. Evidently, she would have been far better pleased by even the roughest Greek dialect. She thought for a moment and then said:
'It would still be best for you to say as little as possible, but if you must speak, speak Italian. These islands long belonged to Venice and it is a language which is still understood. And don't forget to use the familiar form to everyone – we are not very formal here.'
Marianne washed quickly, achieving miracles with the small amount of water allotted to her. She even managed to wash her hair and having dried it as best she could, plaited it, still damp, and wound it round her head. She felt amazingly better. The sunburn on her face and arms was no longer sore, thanks to the fisherman's oil, and by the time she had put on the pleated tunic, she felt almost as fresh as if she had just come out of her own elegant bath in Paris. At last, she pulled open the heavy wooden door of her temporary lodging and found Sappho waiting for her, seated on the coping of a well. She had a lyre in her hand and the girls whom Marianne had seen that morning were grouped about her.
Seeing Marianne, Sappho rose and pointed to a place between two of the girls, who did not even glance at her. Then the white procession moved off towards the edge of the plateau, the whole extent of which now became visible to Marianne.
To the east, it fell away in a gentle slope towards the sea, dotted with vines and plantations of tomatoes; to the west it rose to a ridge, on top of which stood a big solidly-constructed white building which, but for the protruding belfry, might have been a fortress. Behind this building, the sun was going down. As for the place where Marianne had spent the day, it was in actual fact a small half-ruined chapel, on whose ochre-coloured dome was a curious thing like a lightning conductor which might once have been a cross. All around it were the crumbling porticoes of an old Byzantine villa, with the well at its heart.
Singing another of its strange archaic hymns, the procession made its way to a high point overlooking the blue expanse of the sea. Here the grey dust was replaced by a block of lava carved into the semblance of a throne. Sappho stepped up to it majestically, clutching her lyre to her breast with her folded arms, while the girls knelt at her feet. All turned to face the setting sun, endeavouring to imitate the ecstatic look which illumined their mistress's face. Marianne might have found it all rather absurd if she had not realized that all this was nothing but a front and that there was something else, infinitely powerful and respectable, concealed behind this continuous masquerade to which all the women were committed.
'They think us mad,' Sappho had said, and she was certainly doing her utmost to convey that impression. She had remained for a moment in thought, her head resting on her hands, and then, striking a few chords on her lyre, she began to sing in a strong voice some kind of long hymn to the sun. As music it was not bad, but Marianne very soon came to the conclusion that it was by far too long and boring to be worth the trouble of trying to translate the words.
In a little while some of her companions got up and began to dance. The dance was a slow, ceremonial one and yet oddly suggestive, as though the strong young bodies revealed by the folds of linen in the movements of the dance were being offered up to the dying sun.
Before very long this strange concert acquired an even stranger counterpoint. Three black figures in tall headdresses appeared on the steep slope leading up to the white fortress-like building on the ridge, three very angry figures, shouting and waving their fists at the dancers. Marianne gathered that the building must be a monastery and that her companions' choreographic exercises were not to the liking of the holy men who lived there. Remembering the monk in Yorgo's boat and his evident disapproval of herself, she could not be surprised, but felt some alarm when the three protesters started to throw stones. Happily, the distance was considerable and their aim singularly bad.
At all events, neither Sappho nor her followers seemed to take much notice. Nor did they show any sign when one of the monks ran down the road and accosted two passing Turkish soldiers, a pair of janissaries in felt hats and red boots. He gesticulated furiously towards the women but the Turks scarcely bothered even to look round. After one bored glance at the dancers, they shrugged their shoulders and went on their way northwards.
By this time, moreover, Sappho had finished her song. The sun had disappeared below the ridge, and it would soon be dark. The women formed up as before, in silence, and retraced their steps towards the old villa, with the poetess and the flute-players in the lead, looking more exalted than ever.
Marianne, walking in their midst, sought in vain for answers to the questions that filled her mind. She was so deep in her thoughts that she did not see a clump of mastic growing in the path, and tripped over it. She would have fallen if the girl next to her had not put out a strong hand to steady her – a hand so strong, in fact, that Marianne found herself looking at its owner with rather more attention.
She was a tall, lithe-limbed creature who carried herself proudly, and the face below the mass of black curls gathered on her neck was fine-featured and keen. Like most of her companions, she was tall and well-built, not in the least fragile, yet not without a certain gracefulness. Her dark eyes smiled briefly as they met Marianne's, and she held her for a moment before letting her go; then she resumed her steady walk as though nothing had occurred. But she left yet another question-mark in Marianne's mind: Sappho must make her girls train like young Spartans, because the body of the girl who had supported her had felt as hard as marble.
The procession broke up when it reached the villa. One by one, the girls passed in front of Sappho and went through the gate, but when it came to Marianne's turn, the poetess took her hand and led her to the chapel.
'It will be best if you do not mix with the others tonight. Stay here and I will bring you your supper in a little while.'
Marianne obeyed meekly and closed the painted wooden door behind her. Inside, it was almost dark and there was a strong smell of fish which had not been there when she went out. She tried to discover where it came from and thought that she had found it when she saw a small flat fish gleaming on the floor beside the bed. She picked it up, automatically, and was still staring uncomprehendingly at it and wondering how it could have come there when Sappho reappeared, carrying on her head a basket containing food and an oil-lamp which she took out and placed on the table, lighting it at once.
When she saw what M
arianne was holding, she frowned, and took the fish from her.
'I shall have to scold Yorgo,' she said, and the lightness of her tone rang a little false. 'He will leave his baskets in here when he comes back with his catch, because it is nearer than the kitchen.'
Marianne smiled. 'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'I was only wondering how the fish came here.'
'In a perfectly natural way, you see… it couldn't be more natural. Now you may eat.'
She had been setting the table swiftly, with a helping of roast kid, some tomatoes, bread, cheese and the inevitable grapes, but now her hands seemed to linger a little over the bowls and other everyday things she had arranged, as if she were putting off the moment when she would have to say what she had come to say. Suddenly she seemed to make up her mind.
'Don't go to sleep after you have eaten,' she said. 'I will come for you when it is quite dark.'
'What for?'
'Ask no questions. Not now. Later, you will understand much that must have seemed to you strange, even insensate. You need know only that I do nothing without a good reason, and it has cost me much thought, all day, before I made up my mind what I should do about you.'
Marianne's throat felt suddenly dry. The woman's voice held a veiled but horrid menace. It occurred to her that perhaps she was really dealing with a lunatic who, like all those in that condition, refused to recognize her own madness. Nevertheless, she refused to show her fear and merely said quietly:
'Ah!… And you have decided?'
'Yes, I have decided… to trust you. But woe to you if you are deceiving me! The whole of the Mediterranean will not be big enough to save you from our vengeance. Eat now, and wait for me. Oh, I nearly forgot…'
She took a bundle of black material from her basket and tossed it on to the bed.
'Put this on. Darkness is a fine concealment if you know how to melt into it properly.'
This Sappho was a strange creature, Marianne thought. She was still wearing her absurd classical garb but she was a very different person now from the one she had been hitherto. It was as though she had suddenly decided to throw off a mask and reveal her real face, and that face had something implacable about it that could be disquieting. Yet she had said that she had chosen to trust her, although there had been such a menacing note in her voice as she said it that it was almost as though she regretted her decision, or as though her attitude were not of her own choosing, to say the least, and she was merely bowing to circumstances.
Whatever the truth of it, Marianne felt that it was best to do as she was told, since her fate depended on it, but at the same time to be on her guard. As she regained her strength, so she was regaining her appetite for life.
She sat down at the table and began to eat, quite calmly and with relish. She even found herself enjoying the strong, heady wine which was the island's pride, and the agreeable sense of well-being it sent coursing through her veins. She had slept so well that she felt quite rested now and almost ready to face up to whatever new obstacles fate seemed to be taking a malign pleasure in putting in her way.
Darkness had fallen long before Sappho returned to the chapel, and Marianne had long been ready and waiting, without impatience, sitting on a stool with her hands hugging her knees. She had put on the costume given to her, which turned out to be of the kind commonly worn by the peasant women of the Greek islands, consisting of a full black cotton skirt with a thin band of red round the hem, a tight-waisted bodice to match, and a large, black scarf covered with fine red embroidery which was worn over the head, completely hiding the hair.
The other woman was dressed in almost identical fashion and she cast an approving glance over Marianne.
'What a shame you don't speak our language! You might easily be taken for one of our girls. Even your eyes are as fierce as if you'd been born here! Now, put out the lamp and follow me, without a sound.'
The darkness swallowed them. Marianne felt Sappho's hand take hold of hers in the blackness and draw her forward. Outside, the night seemed inky black and carried on its breath the scents of thyme and myrtle with a faint whiff of sheep. Without that guiding hand, Marianne would undoubtedly have fallen flat within a few steps, because she was walking blind, feeling the ground ahead with her foot before she put it down.
'Come on!' Sappho whispered impatiently. 'We'll never get there at this rate.'
'But I can't see,' Marianne protested. She refrained from inquiring where she was being taken in such haste.
'That will pass. Your eyes will grow accustomed.'
They did, far more quickly than Marianne would have thought possible. At the same time she understood the reason for Sappho's precautions in dressing her in dark clothes and enjoining her to keep silent. A few furlongs from the villa, and hidden from it until they were outside the broken wall, a fire was burning. The light came from outside a formless white building, something between a mosque and a barn, and illuminated the weird, mustachioed figures of a number of Turkish soldiers who were gathered round it, cooking something in a big copper cauldron suspended over the fire.
The firelight also served to show Marianne that the path Sappho had taken passed close by this guard post, but already the poetess had put her finger to her lips and was leading her noiselessly behind a piece of ruined wall which must have belonged to some ancient fortification. The two women were engulfed at once in a thicket of tamarisk and juniper and, with the aid of this twofold cover, were able to move forward slowly, bent almost double and taking care to avoid the smallest snap of a twig underfoot. With this precarious shelter, they passed close enough to the Turks to smell their food cooking. Marianne felt the clutch of fear. At last the perilous part was over, and the two women walked on a little farther and then joined the path which was now winding through what must have been an ancient cemetery, dotted with antique steles and the empty stone troughs of what might once have been sarcophagi. At that point, Sappho turned sharp left up a stony sloping path, like nothing more than a mule track, which climbed precipitously towards the summit of the ridge.
By now Marianne's eyes had grown sufficiently used to the dark for her to make out some details of the landscape, even distinguishing the white blurs of the cistus flowers that grew in patches along the path. It became dear that, for all its winding to and fro, this path was leading them to the hostile white walls of the monastery.
Marianne pulled gently at her companion's sleeve as the other woman climbed ahead of her.
'Surely we aren't going there?' she said as Sappho looked round, and she pointed to the ridge.
'Yes, that is where we are going. To the monastery of Ayios Ilias.'3
'Judging from what I saw earlier on, you aren't exactly on the best of terms with the monks there.'
Sappho paused for a moment, hands on hips. She was breathing hard, for the climb was a tough and tiring one, even for someone who was used to it.
'There is appearance,' she said, 'and reality. The reality is that the higoumenos Daniel is expecting us at eleven o'clock. What you witnessed at sunset was nothing more than a conventional exchange. My song required an answer – and the answer was forthcoming.'
'With stones?' Marianne said, bewilderedly.
'Precisely. Eleven stones were thrown. That meant eleven o'clock. It's time you should know, stranger, that all of us here, and on every other island in the archipelago, and throughout Greece, have sworn to devote our lives to shaking off the Turkish yoke which has oppressed us for centuries. We are all vowed to the service of freedom: rich and poor, peasants, brigands, monks… and madmen! But we must stop talking and press on, because the way is steep and it will take us a good quarter of an hour to reach Ayios Ilias.'
In fact it was twenty minutes later when Marianne and her companion stood beneath the monastery's tall white walls. Marianne, still barely recovered from her recent ordeal, was breathless and thankful that it was night: by day, in the glare of the sun, the climb must be intolerable, for there was not so much as a tree or a blade of gras
s. She was sweating under her black cotton skirts and knew how to value the draught that swirled under the big entrance portico, a massive semicircular arch surmounted by an open pediment hung with bells. An iron gate, adorned with the two-headed eagle of Mount Athos, to which Ayios Ilias belonged, creaked open. A shadow stepped out from among the thick dark shadows of the doorway, but there was nothing alarming in it. It was the plump shadow of a fat little monk, bearded and pigtailed, who, to judge from the odour of sanctity that emanated from him, was not inclined to waste the island's precious water supply unnecessarily. He said something in an undertone to Sappho and then rolled away like a little ball on his short legs, leading the two women along a terrace by a white wall, past a stone-built cistern and elegant Byzantine basin, before plunging into a maze of passages, curved bays opening on to empty vestibules and stairways which, in the light of the smoky torches that burned here and there, looked as if carved out of snow. At last he opened a painted door into the monastery chapel.
Two men were standing in the light of the great bronze lamp in front of a massive eighteenth-century iconostasis, carved and painted in a primitive style, like a child's picture book. But if there was something primitive about the chapel, with its silver-mounted icons and white walls decorated with the two-headed eagle of the Holy Mountain, its two occupants had nothing of the freshness and innocence of childhood about them.
One, wearing a long black robe and gleaming pectoral cross, was the higoumenos Daniel. He had the narrow, emaciated face of the ascetic, made to look still longer by his grey beard, and his eyes were those of a visionary and fanatic. He had the power to annihilate time, and as she crossed the chapel towards him, Marianne had the unnerving feeling that he could see right through her, as though she had no real substance or personal identity.
[Marianne 4] - Marianne and the Rebels Page 29