Fillets of Plaice

by Gerald Durrell

‘What d’you mean, “practically”?’ said Larry. ‘Either you’re a Turk or you’re not a Turk.’

  ‘Wells, theys acts like Turks,’ said Spiro, ‘not likes Greeks, so reallys they’s Turks.’

  Everybody was a bit confused by this piece of logic.

  ‘But even if they are Turks,’ said Larry, ‘what does it matter?’

  ‘Some of these, um . . ., um . . ., remoter villages have a very strong Turkish influence since the Turkish invasion of Greece,’ said Theodore knowledgeably. ‘They have adopted many of the Turkish customs and so in some of these out-of-the-way places, as Spiro quite rightly points out, they are really more Turkish than Greek.’

  ‘But what the hell does it matter?’ said Larry in exasperation.

  ‘They sometimes don’t particularly care for foreigners,’ said Theodore.

  ‘Well, they can’t object to our stopping and looking at the fort,’ said Larry, ‘and in any case, the village is so small I should think we outnumber them by about three to one. Besides, if they look belligerent we can always send Mother ahead with her pearl-handled revolver. That’s bound to quell them.’

  ‘Yous really wants to goes?’ asked Spiro.

  ‘Yes,’ said Larry. ‘Are you afraid of a few Turks?’

  Spiro’s face became suffused with blood to a point where I thought he was liable to have a stroke.

  ‘You shouldn’ts says things like thats, Master Larrys,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraids of any son-of-a-bitch Turks.’

  He turned and stomped off to the end of the boat and gave Taki instructions to head for the little jetty.

  ‘Larry dear, you shouldn’t say things like that,’ said Mother. ‘You’ve hurt his feelings. You know how strongly they feel about the Turks.’

  ‘But they’re not bloody Turks,’ said Larry, ‘they’re Greeks.’

  ‘Technically speaking, I suppose you could call them Greeks,’ said Theodore, ‘but in these remoter places they have become so like Turks as to be almost indistinguishable. It’s a curious amalgam, as it were.’

  As we nosed our way in to the jetty a small boy who had been sitting there fishing picked up his rod and line and ran off into the village.

  ‘You don’t think that he’s gone to alert them, do you?’ asked Leonora nervously. ‘I mean, so that they can come out with guns and things?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so damned silly,’ said Larry.

  ‘Let me go first,’ said Mactavish. ‘I’m used to this sort of situation. Frequently met it among the outlying Indian tribes in Canada while I was tracking a man down. I have a knack for getting on with primitive people.’

  Larry groaned and was about to make a sarcastic remark but was quelled by a vicious look from Mother.

  ‘Now,’ said Mactavish, taking charge of operations, ‘the best thing to do is to get onto the jetty and stroll about a bit admiring things as though, er . . ., as though . . . er . . .’

  ‘As though we were tourists?’ Larry suggested innocently.

  ‘I was about to say,’ said Mactavish, ‘as though we had no evil intentions.’

  ‘Dear God,’ said Larry, ‘one would think this were Darkest Africa.’

  ‘Larry dear, do be quiet,’ said Mother. ‘I’m sure Mr Mactavish knows best. After all, it is my birthday.’

  So we all trooped out onto the jetty and stood for some moments pointing in different directions and carrying on ridiculous conversations with each other.

  ‘Now,’ said Mactavish, ‘forward into the village.’

  Leaving Spiro and Taki in charge of the boat, we trooped off.

  The village consisted of some thirty or forty houses, all tiny, all whitewashed and gleaming, some of them with trellises of green vine, some shrouded in great cloaks of purple bougainvillaea.

  With a brisk, military walk Mactavish led the way, looking like an intrepid member of the French Foreign Legion about to take over an unruly Arab settlement, and we all ambled after him.

  There was only one main street in the village, if it could be dignified with that term, and off it ran several tiny alleyways, between the houses. As we passed one of these alleyways, a woman wearing a yashmak rushed out of a house, gave us a horrified glance and disappeared down one of the alleyways at a hurried pace. I had never seen a yashmak before so I was vastly intrigued.

  ‘What was she wearing on her face?’ I inquired. ‘Is she bandaged up for some reason?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Theodore, ‘she’s wearing a yashmak. If they are very Turkish in this village you will find that most of the women wear them to cover their faces.’

  ‘I always thought it was a bloody silly idea,’ said Larry. ‘If a woman’s got a pretty face, she should show it. The only thing I would advocate is a gag if she talked too much.’

  The street led inevitably to what was the hub of any village – a tiny square dominated by an enormous and very beautiful umbrella pine, and in its shade a series of tables and chairs. Here was the tiny café which, as in an English village, acts as the local pub, dispensing not only foodstuffs but wine and gossip and slander in equal quantities. It was very curious to me that as our cavalcade had passed through the village we had seen not a living soul except the woman. If it had been one of the remoter villages of Corfu, we would have been surrounded by now by a vociferous and fascinated crowd of inhabitants. However, when we came to the village square we saw – or at least we thought we saw – the reason, for most of the little tables under the pine tree were occupied by men, nearly all of whom were elderly, with impressive long white beards, wearing baggy pants, tattered shirts and charukias, the curious shoes with upturned toes made of bright red leather with the toes decorated with highly coloured pompoms. They greeted the arrival of our group in the square with complete silence. They just sat and looked at us.

  ‘Aha!’ said Mactavish in a loud and cheerful voice. ‘Kalimera, kalimera, kalimera!’

  If it had been a Greek village there would have been an immediate response to his cry of ‘good morning’. Some would have said, ‘We are glad you have come’, others, ‘herete’, which means ‘be happy’, and others have responded with ‘kalimera’. Instead, there was no reaction except that one or two of the older men bowed their heads gravely in our direction.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Mactavish, ‘let’s get a few tables together, have a few drinks, and once they get used to us I’m sure they’ll rally round.’

  ‘I don’t think I really like it,’ said Mother nervously. ‘Don’t you think that Margo, Leonora and I ought to go back to the boat? I mean, it’s all men and no women.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, Mother. Stop fussing,’ said Larry.

  ‘I think,’ said Theodore glancing up lovingly at the huge umbrella pine above us, ‘I think that’s why that small boy ran into the village. In some of these remoter villages, you know, the women have to stay in the houses. And so he went you know, to warn them. Also the sight of, um . . . um . . . er . . ., the . . . er . . . ladies of the party must be er . . ., you know, um . . ., unusual to them.’

  As Mother, Margo and Leonora were not wearing yashmaks and Margo and Leonora were wearing rather dashing cotton dresses which left a considerable portion of their anatomy visible, this was not altogether surprising.

  We joined several tables together, placed chairs around them and sat down. The groups of men who, contrary to Larry’s expectations, outnumbered us by about five to one, continued to sit there silently, gazing at us as impassively as lizards. After waiting for some considerable time, making rather haphazard conversation, an elderly man shuffled out of the café and came with obvious reluctance to our table. By now thoroughly unnerved, we all said kalimera in unison with various degrees of nervous enthusiasm. To our infinite relief, he said kalimera back.

  ‘Now,’ said Mactavish, who rather prided himself on his command of the Greek language, ‘we’ll have a little drink and some meze.’

  It should have been unnecessary for him to add the request for meze, for this includes things like olives
, nuts, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, cheese, and similar little plates which, if you ordered a drink in Greece, were automatically served. But it seemed in the circumstances that even an ex-Mountie was beginning to become slightly rattled.

  ‘Yes,’ said the cafe owner gravely. ‘What drink would you require?’

  Mactavish took orders for our drinks, which ranged from ginger beer through ouzo to brandy and retsina. He translated all this to the cafe owner.

  ‘I have only red wine,’ said the cafe owner.

  An exasperated look spread across Mactavish’s face.

  ‘Well then, bring us red wine and meze,’ he said.

  The cafe owner gave a little nod of his head and shuffled back to the interior of his gloomy little shop.

  ‘Now why,’ asked Mactavish, ‘should he ask me what we wanted to drink when he knew perfectly well he’d only got red wine?’

  Mactavish loved the Greeks dearly and had taken the trouble to speak their language quite fluently, but he could never quite come to terms with their logic.

  ‘It’s perfectly obvious,’ said Larry exasperatedly. ‘He wanted to find out what you wanted to drink and if you had wanted red wine he would have gone and got it for you.’

  ‘Yes, but why not just say he’s got red wine in the first place and nothing else?’

  ‘But that doesn’t happen in Greece,’ Larry explained patiently. ‘It’s too logical.’

  We sat at our table with all those inimical eyes fastened on us, feeling rather like a group of actors on a stage who had all simultaneously forgotten their lines. Presently the old man shuffled out, carrying a battered tin tray which bore upon it, for some obscure reason, a portrait of Queen Victoria. He placed on the table some little plates of small black olives and chunks of white goat cheese, two flagons of wine and a series of glasses that, although clean, were so chipped and worn with use that they looked as though they could give you any one of a number of interesting diseases.

  ‘They do not seem very happy in dis village,’ observed Max.

  ‘What do you expect?’ said Donald. ‘Lot of damned foreigners. Now, if this were England it would be different.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Larry sarcastically, ‘we’d be doing Morris dancing with them in next to no time.’

  Although the concentrated state of our male audience had not really changed, it had now in our nervous state begun to look positively malevolent.

  ‘Music,’ said Sven, ‘it soothes the savage beast. I will play you a tune.’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake, play something cheerful,’ said Larry. ‘If you start playing Bach to them I can see them all going and getting their muzzle-loaders.’

  Sven hitched his accordion into position and played a very charming little polka which should have softened any Greek’s heart. But our audience remained unmoved though it seemed as though there was a slight lessening of tension in the air.

  ‘I really do think that Margo, Leonora and I ought to go back to the boat,’ said Mother.

  ‘No, no, my dear Mrs Durrell,’ said Mactavish, ‘I assure you I know this situation so well. It takes time for these primitive people to adapt themselves to you. And now, since Sven’s music has had no effect, I think the time has come for magic.’

  ‘Magic?’ said Theodore, leaning forward and gazing at Mactavish intensely, deeply interested. ‘How do you mean, magic?’

  ‘Conjuring,’ said Mactavish. ‘In my spare time I’m a bit of a conjuror.’

  ‘Dear God,’ groaned Larry, ‘why not give them strings of beads?’

  ‘Oh, do shut up, Larry,’ hissed Margo. ‘Mactavish knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you think so,’ said Larry.

  Mactavish strode off purposefully into the café and reappeared with a plate on which were four eggs. He placed these carefully on the table and stood back so the silent audience of villagers could observe.

  ‘Now,’ he said, gesticulating in a professional conjurer’s manner, ‘my first trick is the egg trick. May I borrow some sort of receptacle from one of you?’

  ‘A handkerchief?’ inquired Donald.

  ‘No,’ said Mactavish, giving a glance at his audience of villagers. ‘I think something a little more spectacular. Mrs Durrell, would you be kind enough to lend me your hat?’

  Mother, during the summer months, used to wear a large straw hat that, in view of her minuteness, made her look somewhat like an animated mushroom.

  ‘I don’t want egg all over it,’ she said.

  ‘No, no, I assure you,’ said Mactavish, ‘there’s no danger.’

  Reluctantly, Mother removed her straw hat and handed it to Mactavish. With a great flourish he placed it on the table in front of him, glanced up to make sure the villagers were watching, took an egg and placed it carefully in the hat. Then he squeezed the brim together and gave it a resounding blow on the side of the table.

  ‘If we save all the bits,’ said Larry, ‘I suppose we could have an omelette.’

  Mactavish, however, unfurled the hat and displayed it to us in such a way that the villagers could see that it was completely empty and egg-less. He then took a second egg and did precisely same thing and again the hat was empty and egg-less. As he did the same again with the third egg I saw animation starting to creep into the eyes of our village audience, and after the fourth egg one or two of the men were actually exchanging whispered remarks. Then, with great flamboyance, Mactavish showed us all the completely empty and egg-less hat and showed it also to the villagers. He then placed it on the table and folded up the brim once more, then opened it and with perfect timing took out four absolutely intact eggs and placed them on the plate.

  Even Larry was impressed. Of course, it was a simple job of what conjurers call palming; that is to say, you appear to put a thing into something, whereas in actual fact it is in your hand and you conceal it on some part of your anatomy. I had seen it done with watches and other objects but I had never seen it done quite so skilfully with four eggs, which are, after all difficult to conceal and are the easiest things to break during such a trick, thus spoiling the whole effect.

  Mactavish bowed to our solemn clapping and, to our great astonishment, there were even a few desultory claps from the villagers. Some of the older men, in fact, who had slightly defective eyesight, switched tables with the younger ones so that they were closer to us.

  ‘You see what I mean?’ said Mactavish proudly. ‘Little bit of magic works wonders.’

  He then produced from his pocket a pack of cards and proceeded to go through the normal routine that conjurers use with cards, flourishing them up in the air so that they landed on his hand and spread out along his arm without a single card falling. The villages were now really excited and from sitting on the opposite side of the square from us, they had now converged on us. The old men with defective eyesight had in fact become so intrigued that they had moved their chairs forward until they were almost sitting at our table.

  It was obvious that Mactavish was enjoying himself immensely. He put an egg into his mouth, scrunched it up and then opened his mouth wide to show that there was no egg there and produced it from his shirt pocket. Now there came a hearty round of applause from the villagers.

  ‘Isn’t he clever?’ said Margo.

  ‘I told you he was alright,’ said Leslie, ‘and he’s a damned good pistol shot, too.’

  ‘I must ask him how he does these, um . . ., illusions,’ said Theodore.

  ‘I wonder if he knows how to saw a woman in half,’ said Larry thoughtfully, ‘I mean, so that you could get the half that functions but doesn’t talk.’

  ‘Larry dear,’ said Mother, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t say things like that in front of Gerry.’

  Now came Mactavish’s big moment. The front row of the village audience consisted entirely of old men with long white beards, and the younger men were standing in the background craning their necks to watch his tricks. Mactavish strode forward to the oldest of the old men, who must surely have b
een the mayor of the village since we had noticed he had been given a special place of honour so that he could see the tricks more clearly. Mactavish stood there for a moment with his hands up, fingers spread wide, and said in Greek,

  ‘I will now show you another trick.’

  Swiftly, he reached down and produced from the old man’s beard a drachma and threw the silver-coloured coin on the ground. There was a gasp of astonishment from the assembled company. Then, having raised his arms and spread his fingers wide once more, he reached into the other side of the old man’s beard and produced a five drachma piece, which he again, with a flourish, threw on the ground.

  ‘Now,’ said Mactavish in Greek, holding up his hands once more, ‘you’ve seen how I have produced by magic this money from the mayor’s beard . . .’

  ‘Can you produce more?’ inquired the mayor in a quavering voice.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ came a chorus of villagers, ‘can you produce more?’

  ‘I will see what my magic can do,’ said Mactavish, by now completely carried away.

  In rapid succession he produced from the mayor’s beard a whole series of ten-drachma coins, which he threw on the mounting pile on the ground. In those days Greece was so poverty stricken that the shower of silver Mactavish was producing out of the mayor’s beard represented a small fortune.

  It was at that point that Mactavish over-reached himself. He produced from the mayor’s beard a fifty-drachma note. The ‘ahs’ of excitement were almost deafening. Encouraged by this, Mactavish produced four more fifty-drachma notes. The mayor sat there entranced. Periodically he would whisper a blessing to one or another of the many saints who he felt were producing this miracle.

  ‘I think, you know,’ said Theodore in a tentative tone of voice, ‘it would be perhaps advisable not to produce any more.’

  But Mactavish was too flushed with enthusiasm to realise the danger. He produced several one hundred-drachma notes from the mayor’s beard and the applause was deafening.

  Now,’ he said, ‘For my final trick,’ and he held up his hands once more to show that they were empty. He bent down and plucked from the mayor’s beard a bunch of 500-drachma notes.