A comet of light threw an arc across the sky and Minunep’s frightened eyes followed it back from where he had come. Through Keftiu eyes, he could see Basilius had climbed Oaxsos for the last time. It was a vision clearly seen. He stood in the temple of sacrifice, the knife unsheathed. On the altar before him, lying on one side, was a young man bound in rope, his legs pulled backwards and tied. Frozen in his nightmare, the eyes of Sarapos bulged while he bellowed.
Mimis heard the explosion to the north and saw black, billowing smoke and gas rising high above the earth. It raced southward, swallowing the sea.
The sacrifice on the altar became enshrouded in thick dust. Catastrophe was imminent, just minutes away. Too late, he thought. It is too late!
The bronze knife trembled from the fear in his heart. His hand gently touched the young man’s neck and felt his pulse. Whose throat should be cut open and whose blood must he spill to feed the earth? Was it Sarapos or should it be his own?
A frightened priestess held a clay rhyton beneath the altar to capture the stream of sacrificial blood. Mimis lowered the knife slowly, altering its natural course, and presented it hard against the side of his own neck. Hearing a voice entering his phrenes, he paused. The voice said, “I am here beside you. We are all side by side. Leap toward the light, Mimis, and not into the abyss.”
Mimis’ fingers squeezed the handle of the knife tightly as his hand trembled. He heard the voice again. “Take the path through the light. Before you leave your earth, you must know the way. What has passed is past. Time moves only forward, never back. Look into the light and not into the abyss.”
With a sudden rush of wind, Mimis fell like a comet, a tumbling blur; a bright light burning as it plummeted to earth. Behind him a stream of light vaporized.
In that shard of a moment where time is lost and then regained, a mighty hand reached down as Mimis fell, and pulled him back onto the mountain’s ledge. Mimis lay upon the ground bewildered at the sight of the figure of a man who stood above him. A large hand reached out toward his and on one finger was the ring he knew so well. Tied on his wrist was the engraved seal stone of a figure poling the boat of the dead.
It was the perivoli man. Before him stood the living force of Omega, the high priest of Eleus. Mimis’ mind was charged with disbelief. His quivering hand reached out. The ancient man lowered his hand to reach him until their fingers touched. Mimis felt the warmth from them, the life within Omega. It was the moment of resolution and his eyes filled with tears. He took hold of the ancient man’s hand. He held it tightly, thinking that the perivoli man might dissolve before his eyes. How might he hold onto him, protect this moment from collapsing into emptiness?
The pulse within the hands of the two men beat wildly. Mimis felt it surge within his body, wave upon pulsating wave; the indeterminate murmur between two living points in time. The ancient man laughed loudly and pulled Mimis to his feet. Mimis embraced him, feeling dizzy with ecstasy.
Here upon the crossroads I see him; this night when everything familiar disappears. Do not blink for a moment. Do not look away. Even if he speaks, be – silent. Silent thoughts. Mimis squeezed his eyes closed and tightened his embrace.
He heard the voice within. “He comes to you upon your earthly call, your false despair and wingless fall, to pull you back where death conspires, where failure grips your mind’s desires.”
With joy in his heart, Mimis stumbled to his feet, taking the hand that saved him. When he stood, he was surprised to see he was holding the broad hand of Demetra, who promptly embraced him.
The ancient priest was gone. Mimis searched vainly, asking Demetra,
“Did you see him? Omega?”
Demetra pointed to the mystes nearby. “They saw you come back. Beneath the light of the moon, you returned.”
Mimis nodded. “And you? What did you see?”
“Me? My eyes were not in me. They were in you. I saw through your eyes, Mimis. He came out of the wind. Omega breathes with life.”
With a slight grin crinkling his face, Mimis said, “Demate! What part did you play? What part of him are you?”
Demetra’s face grew bright while her body reeled back in hearty laughter. She shrugged and threw both hands out to him. “Mimis,” she shrieked joyfully. “Sometimes a man with so many brains can be so stupid. Anyway, this has been the night of nights and I am ready to burst into tears if I don’t rejoice. I want to sing so all the world can hear.” She began to sing in her most beautiful and resonant voice.
The angry earth ceased shaking. The flooded waters in Elefsis slipped away, and with them, the demons of the deep. The villagers, lighting their way with candles, retreated to the village square for prayer.
The tower clock beside St Constantino and Eleni had frozen at the moment the earth had split. It remained as a reminder of what had passed. Yet time on earth pressed forward, as always, waiting for no man.
The crescent-shaped sliver of a moon peered between the clouds, painting white the tips of rolling waters out to sea. In the silence of this Cretan evening, the sputter of a boat leaving Elefsis harbour went unnoticed. At the helm, a wide-eyes Dionysos steered his vessel through the waters of the gulf, past Spinalonga and out into the avenging heart of the darkness.
A long-bladed knife, fitted tightly in his belt, was at the ready. Dionysos had the devil on the run and he cursed and spat his name into the sea. On the horizon, brooding storm clouds grouped. With eyes of fire and shaking his giant fists, Dionysos veered northward.
“This time you will not escape and disappear. This time I see you. You are mine.”
In the darkness he will come, carrying
secrets clutched beneath his cloak.
Anointed daggers cleansed before the gods
to slash upon my throat.
My death will be their glory
as the mountain be my form.
And I will return among the living
as I returned within her womb.
When I die, raise
from my grave the smoothened stone.
You will still feel the pulse
above my scalded bones.
Mavrokakis
Circa 1880s
Cretan Underworld
June 1981
H
e trudged through the darkened tunnel, grunting up the steep incline. Upward. Outward. His breathing was heavy in the cold underground, forcing great jets of steam from both nostrils. He paused to calm the thumping beast within, while high above a faint glowing light came into view. Light! How long had it been since he had seen light?
He was wet. His hair and beard were wild and long. His body and tattered gown were covered in filth and mud. In the still, cold underground tunnel, the priest felt one flickering thought of desire. He wished to feel the sun.
Father Dimitrios had travelled through the ancient tunnels and toward the depths of his own soul. He trudged through the lost chthonic world of his ancestors and the uncharted realm within his mind. He was guided by his pebbles and the desire to discover the place his scriptures could not take him; first, across the endless sea of the dead, anchoring at all the ports of his vanities and sins. He walked the tunnels, looking back upon his life. It was there he fasted until his belly was empty of himself and his thick, congealed blood grew thin and pure by the efforts of his will. From that moment he grew stronger and soon his silent soul appeared as a simple brilliant light. It formed a shape in his image.
In reducing himself to nothing, Dimitrios could become at one with everything. He found eternity and God at the same time. He found the way in and now the way out, just as the Minoans had done while in life. He was, for the first time, unburdened by the blindness of faith and the impotence of fate.
Father Dimitrios was no longer the scapegoat, the lost one who had thrown himself from a cliff in sacrifice. He had survived the odyssey of selflessness and returned. He was coming home a free man.
He smiled at those warm memories of deception, sitting at the edge o
f his bed each morning, searching for the bravery he hoped had entered him the night before. In all the years of praying within the Church, the bravery never came. The answers were not there beneath the manmade golden dome. It was still a home for the homeless, a place of hope, yet where hope would eventually dissolve. How many years had he offered his congregation the blind eye of rituals, repeating them over and over before fallen eyes? He knew the Church became the unsuspected oppressor and their fallen eyes became his own. It was no longer his sanctuary.
He liked to think it was God who cast him away and sent him on the journey that began in his own darkness. Oh, the horrors of entering that labyrinth. With every step he felt himself being reduced to nothing; succumbing, without struggle, to the vapours of a blissful death.
He hoped it was God who had lit the candescent light within him and taught him to know this kind of death; a reawakening of his living soul; a regeneration from the seed. The power from it changed the darkness to light and filled the entire universe with accessibility. He travelled the breadth of the heavens through the will of a single glance. The core of his mind became a star, an icy comet, a gnat upon a garden leaf. In reducing himself to nothing, Dimitrios became everything. Eternity, he discovered, was for the living, and not a resting place for the dead. It was not a place in the clouds a million light years from earth. It was a peace in his mind that settled in his heart.
Dimitrios ascended from the tunnels of the underground, climbing outward. He reached a thermal point where the cold dark air turned instantly warm and the filtered light fell down many ancient hand-hewn steps to show the way. The end of the journey was near. Ahead a circular opening was visible and beyond it, the light of day. He approached the mouth of a cave, stepping closer to the edge. With one hand he braced himself on the low, rocky ceiling. He shielded his eyes with the other hand and peered below. His eyes filled with tears from the brightness of the rising sun. He squinted and inhaled the morning air. Below he saw the blue-green sea and the island of Spinalonga. A small fishing vessel was entering the gulf. A few miles up the coast was the white reflection of the houses of Elefsis and the golden church dome of St Constantino and Eleni. He thought of the thick scent of incense. He remembered the simple time when he was a simple man.
Within his mind Dimitrios saw the image of Semele waking breathlessly. He knew she would sense his return. Flinging a single sheet into the sir, she sat at the edge of the bed – listening. Semele rushed to the wooden shutter windows, unlatching them, then nudged them slowly outward. As she did, the light from the rising sun displayed a narrow golden light down the centre of her face and body. With one finger she traced the line of light to her chest where she stopped and made the sign of the cross. She opened the louvres wider, allowing the sun to widen its embrace of her body and fill the room with joy. “You’ve come back,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and began to sob.
A gust of wind shook the door as though an invisible hand was trying the latch. The frail eyes of Manolis Theepsos were fixed on the handle, waiting for it to open.
“Go back to the devil,” he shouted.
He opened the door slowly and peered outside. No one. Above the door lintel a charcoal cross had been freshly retraced to keep evil from entering. He glanced up at it and made his stavro. Theepsos surveyed the position of the morning sun, shuffled down the hill of Dacktilo to welcome the fishermen and to celebrate the arrival of a new day. He passed the Church of St Constantino and Eleni, greeting the young priest, gazing at the leaning clock tower.
“Good morning, young priest,” he said.
“Oh, good morning, Mr Manolis.”
“Stupid clock. It should have fallen down when it had the chance.”
The young priest looked up to the clock where time had frozen when the earthquake struck. “I fear it might fall soon.”
“Maybe not. Bad memories remain forever.”
The fishing boats had returned to port with proud captains at the helm, filling the air with songs. “Everyone catches fish today,” shouted one fisherman. “I think the sea has fallen back to sleep. Today the sun woke up very big and very, very bright. Maybe it blinds the barbooni?”
Kolikos raised his eyes to the sky and squinted. “Maybe, but I don’t care. I am happy. I love everything this morning. The sun. The wind. Even Demetra.” He shouted so she could hear, blowing a kiss. “You hear me, my little koukla?”
Demetra finished sorting her fish into wooden crates and stretched her sore back. “Little koukla? You only love me when you catch more fish than me.”
“Maybe. Today is a special day. The fish have come back again. I, Kolikos, predict tomorrow will be the same.”
Demetra chuckled under her breath. “Little koukla.”
She lifted the crates of fish onto the wharf and began carrying them across the platea to join the others at Angalia’s taverna. The fishermen were singing and toasting their good fortune.
“Everyone in Elefsis will eat like a rich man tonight!” shouted Spargos.
“Look at them come,” Kolikos shouted. “Everyone has woken up from the smell of so much fish. Even the old vultures have come early and will pay the full price.”
Demetra chuckled and turned to see Semele stepping out of Giorgos’ grocery store with two full bags of food. The church attendant smiled in recognition, but the smile offered more than a mere greeting. She was peculiar in her brightness, glowing like the woman Demetra had remembered from long ago.
Semele passed each fisherman and stopped in front of Demetra. She placed the bags on the ground.
From her chair, Demetra reached forward and selected four of the finest fish and wrapped them in newspaper, then placed them in Semele’s bag.
“A gift,” she whispered. “He will be happy.”
“How did you know?” asked Semele in a faint voice.
“My eyesight is not so good at my age, but I can see hope light up when it is strong. It can bring back the living and it can also bring back the dead. I know.” She pointed to the sky. “Hierophos, my husband, returned to me the same way.”
With a glass of raki in her hand, Demetra tapped the table and toasted the fish, the sea, and the sun, and began to sing a mantinade in her deep and wondrous voice.
Semele eagerly returned home, placing the groceries on the table. She unlocked the door of her dead mother’s sideboard, setting free the smell of naphthalene, retrieving fine linen that had been passed down to her. She covered the table with an embroidered cloth and pressed the creases with a warm iron, and then set the table with special hand-painted plates she was told had come from Paris. Until this moment, these things had remained in solemn darkness, sleeping in the cupboard with ancestral memories.
Semele sat through the day and into the night at her table, wearing a plain floral dress. It was a special dress worn once at her nephew’s wedding. In one pocket she found a small piece of wedding lace that once had been wrapped around colourful, sugar-coated almonds. She tried to unwrinkled the lace, to make it flat again. In the silence of the passing hours, her hope faded and the smell of naphthalene grew stronger. She could smell it on her dress and on her skin. She cried at the thought of herself becoming one with the linen in the darkness behind a closed cupboard door.
The tears that fell did not drown the agony, the disappointment Semele felt. She had been so certain the man she loved had returned. In her heart she believed he had come back for her. Whether he reappeared at her gate riding high on a stallion or returned a simple pauper made no difference at all.
She was not to know Dimitrios had arrived in Elefsis during the night, entering his old home at the Church of St Constantino and Eleni. He startled the new priest, but was welcomed with an embrace.
The fledging minister was inquistive about Dimitrios’ departure and rumoured journey. He listened quietly to the dishevelled man in admiration. The stories he heard lit a beacon in his soul. In his years at the seminary, he believed such travels into darkness were made only by saints.
His eyes were wide with wonderment and a yearning for the light of Dimitrios’ discovery.
He confessed to his predecessor, “Your arms reach out while mine barely touch my knees. It is a special honour to meet you and I look forward to working beside you and learning the things no seminary has the wisdom to teach.”
Dimitrios closed his eyes while lifting his chin in denial, then glanced away to the familiar window near the ceiling of the priest’s bed-sitting room. “That window – it really is too small, isn’t it?”
The young priest looked up and stared. “I hardly notice it is there.” In the silence of their gaze, the young priest sensed Father Dimitrios Vassilio would never again return to the church as a priest. He felt the irony of their paths crossing, just as he began his life in the priesthood. Dimitrios was now free of it.
“Could I ask a favour of you before I leave?”
The young priest smiled. “Of course. This is your home as well as mine.”
“I’d like to shave and clean myself up. There’s someone special I must see. Maybe a change of clothes. Something very simple will do.”
Dimitrios arrived at Semele’s home after midnight. Though he saw the light above him, he did not hear a sound in the house; not one footstep. He had come to her, not as a man in need of a woman, but as a man in search of his only trusted friend.
How could he not know of her secret love for him? Though he had discovered the wings of his invisible soul, he had not seen the faint glow of a tiny beating heart. That night in her garden and in his dreams, he felt the weight of it.
Semele had sobbed in her sleep until she heard a rooster crow. Lifting her head from the table, she knew dawn was near. The setting on the table looked so sad through her melancholy eyes. She stood to close the shutters, not wanting the morning sun to mock her. With both elbows resting against the windowsill, she leaned out to smell the air. The light from the window faintly lit the garden below, yet Semele failed to see the figure of a man sitting near the wooden gate. He was facing her in silence.
Digging at the Crossroads of Time Page 28