Upon the wishes of my Pharaoh, I sailed past the comforts of my sun, across our friendly waters that I knew, and beyond the invisible line. My phrenes awoke me one night as we passed toward the land of the labyros, the bottomless waters of Meterra bringing my father’s voice to me. It was not his calm, soothing voice. Instead, he shouted as though through the winds of a storm. “Silent thoughts. Safe journey.” I squeezed my eyes, trying to obey him. “Beware of the labyros; the double-bladed axe.”
What was the meaning of this warning? I had seen these labrys many times throughout Keftiu, sacred symbols seen in many forms. Most double blades were large and made from bronze, attached to long handles. The double-headed axe was sacred and used for rituals. For what purpose I dared not ask. They were symbols, not weapons, which left me puzzled by my father’s words.
For many days I could see the black smoke in the sky. At night I saw nothing, sensed only the harsh smell of anger belched up from Akrotiri. It greeted us upon the wind with foul intentions. I was not alone with my thoughts. My crew and the slaves upon my ship of twenty oars squealed and cries through the night, noises not made by any normal living man. In the morning we continued our journey again in silence. I saw the prayers upon their lips, the terror of their eyes looking toward the smoke, thinking that any moment the Great Green Sea would open and we would all fall into the centre of the world forever.
I do not fear death. I do not fear my body being taken in duty to my God and Pharaoh. Upon His request I would step into the mouth of death knowing it will please him. His wisdom fills the sun and rises above all the land of Egypt. Yet I fear my Ka may be lost forever in this place. My Ka, my double, who lives within me while in life and guides me in death, was silenced in these waters. Without a Ka, who would guide me through the Keftiu underworld? What fate might there be for an alien, a man such as I? The fiery smoke from Akrotiri told me to go no further and to turn my boat toward Egypt yet how could I disobey the wishes of my Pharaoh? I shouted to the moon. I shouted Keftiu words of praise and begged that my ship be allowed to pass above the water.
We rowed closer. My slaves began to cry aloud and looked upon me to calm them, to remove the spirits from their chests. I promised to throw each man into the black water should he not row at twice the speed. The mountain of Akrotiri spoke with fire, and rising from the peak were three holes belching smoke and gas. Was this Meterra, the great Keftiu Goddess, the giver of life and the angry mother of death? Why would she cough out such a sickness? The son of Wannaxsos, young Sarapos, was still in life. There could be no doubt of it.
From the east I saw two Keftiu ships leave the shores of Akrotiri. They were sailing toward me. As they came closer I recognized Basilius, the priest, and Varka, the wise fisherman. They shouted at me and asked if I had lost my way. There was a loud explosion drowning my words of explanation. I tried to tell them that my journey to the island of the black smoke was for the eyes of my God and Pharaoh. They did not hear and gestured that I leave quickly.
“The people of Akrotiri are leaving for Keftiu,” shouted Basilius. “The earth now shakes their homes to the ground and Meterra breathes a poison in their thumos. There is no place for them or you. Row swiftly. The curse of Keftiu now surrounds us all.”
The last words of Basilius remained alive with me for four days and four nights as I forced my crew to row on through darkness and light toward Keftiu. By the morning of the third day, three men had died from the curse or from exhaustion. Their bodies were quickly removed from the ship. By the fourth day we reached the safety of Eleus. Six more men had died.
Unlike the ships of Keftiu with thirty oars, mine was slow and heavy in the water. Varka said he had worried for my safely. He had reached Eleus three days before me. His thumos was now at ease, though mine was not. He laughed, touching my arm like a friend to calm me.
“It will pass,” he said.
I looked to the black sky to the north and wished for my home. With many of my men removed from life, my visit here would be a long one.
I cannot see the smells of it,
The tastes come drifting by
And I need not hear potatoes cook
To know a meal’s in the sky.
Air Eleus, your smell of memories
Floating back and forth to the sea,
Flying into the heavens,
Then falling back on top of me.
Mavrokakis
Circa 1880s
On the Cretan Wind
Monday, August 17, 1980
T
he faint smell of holy burnt sage clung to the morning air. It was the smell that came from every house that had celebrated the Transfiguration of Christ the day before. Villagers were reminded that it was the day that the face of Jesus transfigured into the sun and his gown turned blinding white. God’s voice came from the clouds and spoke to three disciples to confirm, just in case they doubted it: “This is my son.” The smell of the sage in Eleus seemed to fill the air with God’s voice.
Manolis Theepsos waved to Miropi, the pereepterro woman. Every morning she unlocked her battered bunker, the kiosk that stood alone at the edge of the village square. Manolis took a hurried final sip of his coffee at Angalia’s and hobbled across the street as quickly as his aching bones would take him.
The tiny kiosk had been painted white many years before, thirty-eight to be exact. It had been the week after Miropi’s wedding to Stephanos, whose family had owned the kiosk since before the beginning of the century. Like most Cretan marriages in the 1940s their union was a business transaction between two families. Miropi would gain a husband and his family’s pereepterro at the same time but, as a woman from a poor family, she had no dowry to give in return. To atone for this, Miropi would work alone in the business from her marriage day onwards. She would provide their income. This left Stephanos to get on with the manly duty of visiting relatives and drinking at the caffeneon.
Miropi accepted her obligations willingly: arriving early, leaving late, selling almost everything imaginable to meet the village’s needs. She stocked cigarettes to combs, worry beads to magazines and under the counter, special herbs and mountains teas, elixirs and revivers that made old legs feel young and tired eyes to see life afresh. Though profit was the motive for Stephanos, the same was not often said of Miropi. Her role as Sunday’s giver of bread to assist Father Dimitrios at the Church of St Constantino and Eleni was religious enough for villagers to pass her kiosk and make the sign of the cross. The mystical and slightly hallucinatory herbs and teas cemented her position as a sort of priestess.
Manolis Theepsos stood at the window eagerly asking for the same special tea that had been sold to him the week before. “Have you heard from my dead wife?” he asked.
Miropi looked at him quizzically. “Why do you ask?”
“Why? Because she yelled at me last night in my sleep.”
“What did you do to make her that mad to come all the way back?”
“I haven’t shaved. She always made me shave. I woke up when she called me an old goat.”
“Well? Maybe she was right, but this morning you look like Adonis. Here! Take some of these leaves, crush three of them and put them in a nice stew tonight. She will come back to you with nice words and a kiss goodnight.”
Manolis bowed and made the stavro while stepping back with his bag of leaves. He landed on the feet of Father Dimitrios whose scornful, wild black eyes sent Theepsos galloping across the street back to Angalia’s.
“Miropi,” he bellowed, “what promises of hope have you sold him this time? I have caught you acting like a shaman, and in the clear view of God and His Church. If I ever enlarge my tiny window, it will only be to watch who comes to this place, this – confessional. You step beyond your bounds. These are sins that cannot be forgiven easily. Do you hear me? I watch them come and go with pythonion leaves, thorn apple and poppy juice. They come to you as a priestess and not a pereepterro woman. We have turned a blind eye to this for years, but you must put an end t
o it now. You have the whole village turning to drugs instead of turning to God. I forbid you from this moment or God will surely punish you – and I will banish you from the Church forever.” He paused and repeated his last word with a wagging finger. “Forever.”
When the priest left, Miropi crawled out of her kiosk with an empty cup and headed toward Angalia’s. She returned with the cup filled only with hot water. Crawling back in the kiosk, she closed the shutters and removed the sunlight, remaining inside for the rest of the day.
The day floated on smells of roasted lamb wrapped in oregano; smells of potatoes and onions in a pan of olive oil scented with fresh sage. It began with the gentlest fragrance, growing stronger and stronger into a smell as deep and complex as life itself. Then without much notice at all, what embraced the senses so strongly turned into a ghost. The invisible vapours floated out the back door and into thin air.
“Roasting lamb is the aroma of life,” said Demetra once, “condensed into a few hours. When lamb is cooked in one house, everyone in the village enjoys it, and in the morning there is a great big sun and the smell of fresh, warm bread.”
In the late afternoon the aromas had disappeared upon the wind; an angry wind that pushed every vessel back to port. Ghost swirls of dust twisted wildly along the street, whirling zigzag across the platea, sometimes flinging themselves off the wharf into nothingness. From out of the sky, Aeolosean demons pressed down upon the sea like an invisible spaceship, forcing a circle of water to flatten, shimmer, and then race away.
The seats outside the caffeneon were empty. A white limousine displaying the Ministry of Culture emblem drove slowly into Elefsis Port. Inside, the diminutive driver hugged the steering wheel and drove to the large church clock tower of St Constantino and Eleni. He then turned right and parked directly in front of the church door. The driver leapt from the car, holding his brimmed cap tightly in one hand, opening the back door with the other.
A heavyset man, bearded and spectacled, emerged, his narrow shoulders almost too small for the width of his hips. He grimaced at the wind glancing toward the fleeing clouds, then walked toward the church door. Another figure remained inside the car, hidden from public view by the shaded windows. A backseat window opened twice during the thirty-minute wait, allowing cigarette butts to escape.
Livitos Skoulis had become fastidiously dressed and manicured since his appointment to the Ministry of Culture. The dapper archaeologist tidied himself before entering the church. He had come to announce his intention to oversee all excavations on Oaxsa. He hoped the priest would tell the congregation about his new posting and give his new appointment a simple blessing. Archaeological interloping had been accepted by the junta but never received respectability outside the Greek government. Some detractors of Skoulis thought he spent years deliberately cultivating political friends to gain incursions into the excavations of others such as the Minoan manor house near Knossos and the Fassoliki Cemetery further south. Archaeologists who became suddenly relegated to a position beneath Skoulis, the appointed overseer, were not in a position to resist. The appointments gave Skoulis notoriety and his political associations positioned him handsomely for a major post in the ministry. A magazine once wrote of him as archaeology’s port pilot, taking over the helm of the ship once it was already in the harbour.
As the elder statesman of Greek archaeology, Skoulis had long lived under the shadow of Arthur Evans, the revered English archaeologist, whose life’s work was at Knossos. Skoulis’ ambitions had been thwarted for two decades because of Evans, the Second World War and the Greek Civil War that followed. Few excavations were carried out during this time. It left him hungry and hurried in the 1960s and 1970s. For history to speak his name in the same breath as Evans required him to produce a discovery of great importance. This he knew. Now he must apply himself in order to achieve greatness not only in the eyes of his peers, but of the world.
Some said he compromised his science in later years by chasing the sort of grandeur the discovery of the golden mask had won for Schliemann. His appointment to the Ministry was a step in the right direction, but the urgency with which he sought to secure a major discovery, some thought was burying his considerable ability. He was no longer a young man. The sun arced across the sky more quickly than it had thirty years before. The darkness at the end of the day seemed like a quiet reminder that time waits for no man.
Steffanakis, as a younger archaeologist, had discovered a Minoan site in central Crete. Its large size, is location and wealth of artefacts gave him credibility in the archaeological community. Skoulis arrived with papers, stating he was to head and oversee the excavation. Despite objections, Steffanakis became an associate to his own discovery.
The wind gusted with serious intent, buffeting the church and bell clock tower, causing the large bell to swing and faintly chime without rhythm. A gloomy Skoulis stepped out of the church with Father Dimitrios. Without shaking the priest’s hand, he hurried to the waiting car. The driver had nodded off to sleep in the front seat and did not fulfil his duty of opening the car door for Skoulis. He awoke with a start when it was slammed shut.
“Well?” asked Aristides.
Skoulis uttered Christian indecencies and flipped his hand at the driver to move on. “To the house of Steffanakis,” he barked.
Aristides gave directions to the large old Turkish villa behind Elefsis. Rendered walls surrounded Steffanakis’ property; an unpolished brass plaque outside displayed the name, The House of Thyme.
The gate opened into a large central courtyard that was surrounded by numerous simple two-storey buildings. The buildings were Turkish in construction, unaltered since they were built during the time of the Sultan’s occupation of the island. The floors were wooden and worn. The building to the left of the gate still had its original meshed window that once hid the faces of Muslim women from the eyes of Turkish men. On the right was Mimis’ childhood home, the home of Trepsithea and Manolis. Next to it, but separate, was a large storage room. Thousands of items found on Oaxsa were housed within, including hundreds of pieces of pottery, miniature statues, an engraved bronze knife, a rare seal stone ring, as well as human remains. This room doubled as Mimis’ office.
Aoide, the regular housekeeper, opened the pounding gate and was promptly told by Skoulis of his authority to enter the property. He demanded that Steffanakis meet with him immediately.
“Professor Steffanakis is not here,” she said. He brushed her aside and walked to the centre of the courtyard, encircling the old estate with his eyes, protecting his beard with one hand from the constant wind.
“Madam, I am now in charge of the excavation in Oaxsa, or should I say, the Ministry of Culture is in charge, and I represent them. Where are the artefacts?” He paused, then shouted angrily. “The artefacts!”
Aoide felt a squeezing panic in her stomach. His aggression overpowered the gentle-natured old woman. She was too frightened to speak. Unintentionally, she had allowed her eyes to betray her. She glanced to the large office and storeroom.
“And how might I get inside that room?” he asked.
Aoide shook her head in defiance. “You come back when Professor Steffanakis is here.”
Still holding his beard, Skoulis closed both eyes with indignation. “Madam, please, I must insist you not obstruct me in my duty. I cannot wait. As you can see, my car and driver are waiting.”
Aoide clutched her knotted black scarf. “You wait! You must wait here! I will have someone find the Professor.”
“Is this the door to the storeroom?” he asked, pointing.
“No, you wait here.” She tried to block his path, then ran out the gate. Skoulis kept walking toward the door as Aoide dashed down the lane yelling, “You wait. You wait. This is not your home. The Professor will come soon.”
Skoulis turned the handle of the heavy panelled door, still hearing the hysterical high-pitched voice down the lane shouting for Steffanakis.
Giorgos, the grocer, came to the aid of th
e exhausted old woman. She had tried to run the entire distance and was near collapse. She was barely able to whisper, “Thieves. Ministry of Culture. The professor. Quickly.”
Giorgos closed the door to his shop, yelled for Angalia to call the doctor and sped off in his pickup truck. He found Steffanakis walking the dirt road to Oaxsa. Together they raced back.
They returned to Angalia’s so Mimis could console Aoide and ensure she was unharmed. They then proceeded to ‘The House of Thyme’ to find that Skoulis had gone. The gate was shut.
Steffanakis rushed inside his office expecting the worst, his eyes wild with anger. Dozens of trestle tables were set up in rows, each filled with numerous numbered shards and artefacts. He walked directly toward the large central table that displayed the bones of human remains. His mouth fell open slightly; a groan escaped. He knew every item, every small, fractured piece. He gazed quickly to the other tables and walked the length of each one, returning to the central workbench. His breath was rapid, his eyes glaring in disbelief as he thought of the two items that had been removed – stolen. First, a small, finely engraved seal stone depicting a man poling a funerary boat. The vessel was in the shape of a crescent moon. The second was the bronze blade of a large handleless knife carefully inscribed over 3600 years earlier with the head of a boar. Both, from the temple at Oasxa, were of major importance to his excavation.
Steffanakis walked quickly toward the door where Giorgos stared helplessly.
“How fast does your truck go?” he asked.
“Fast. It’s the fastest in all Elefsis. Ask anyone.”
The small truck took the winding back roads to the highway and raced past the traffic with an agonizing whine. Mimis was guessing Skoulis was driving quickly with his booty toward the airport in Heraklion, which was two hours from Elefsis. Giorgos guessed they had a twenty-five minute head start and he must fly like an eagle to catch them before they escaped.
Digging at the Crossroads of Time Page 7