My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

  Jeejee waved his hands like pale bronze moths against the white of the sheet.

  ‘Fakyo tells that in life there is a substitute for everything,’ he said firmly.

  When he recovered sufficiently, he paid a visit to the fish market in the town and purchased a vast quantity of fresh sardines. We came back from a pleasant morning’s shopping in the town to find the kitchen and its environs untenable. Jeejee, brandishing a knife with which he was gutting the fish before laying them out in the sun to dry outside the back door, was doing battle with what appeared to be every fly, bluebottle and wasp in the Ionian Islands. He had been stung about five times and one eye was swollen and partially closed. The smell of rapidly decomposing sardines was overwhelming and the kitchen floor and table were covered in snowdrifts of silver fish skin and bits of entrails. It was only when Mother showed him the article on Bombay duck in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that he reluctantly gave up the idea of sardines as a substitute. It took Mother two days, with buckets of hot water and disinfectant, to rid the kitchen of the smell, and even then there was still the odd wasp blundering in hopefully through the windows.

  ‘Perhaps I’d better find you a substitute in Athens or Istanbul,’ said Jeejee hopefully. ‘I vas thinking that lobster baked and crushed to a powder…’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Jeejee dear,’ said Mother hurriedly. ‘We’ve done without it for some time now and it hasn’t hurt us.’

  Jeejee was en route for Persia via Turkey in order to visit an Indian fakir practising there.

  ‘From him I shall learn many things to add to Fakyo,’ said Jeejee. ‘He is a great man. In particular, he is a great exponent of holding his breath and going into a trance. He vas vunce buried for a hundred and twenty days.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ said Mother, deeply interested.

  ‘You mean buried alive?’ asked Margo. ‘Buried alive for a hundred and twenty days? How horrible! It doesn’t seem natural somehow.’

  ‘But he’s in a trance, dear Margo; he feels nothing,’ explained Jeejee.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Mother musingly. ‘That’s why I want to be cremated, you know. Just in case I happen to slip into a trance and no one notices.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mother,’ said Leslie.

  ‘It’s not ridiculous,’ replied Mother firmly. ‘People are so careless nowadays.’

  ‘And what else does a fakir do?’ asked Margo. ‘Can he make mango trees grow from seeds? You know, straight away? I saw them do that in Simla once.’

  ‘That is simple conjuring,’ said Jeejee. ‘Vhat Andrawathi does is much more complex. He is an expert in levitation, for example, and it is vun of the things I vant to see him about.’

  ‘But I thought levitation was card tricks,’ said Margo.

  ‘No,’ said Leslie, ‘it’s floating about, sort of flying, isn’t it, Jeejee?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jeejee. ‘A vonderful ability. A lot of the early Christian saints could do it. I myself have not yet reached that stage of proficiency; that is vhy I vant to study under Andrawathi.’

  ‘How lovely to be able to float like a bird,’ said Margo delightedly. ‘What fun you could have.’

  ‘I believe it to be a truly tremendous experience,’ said Jeejee, his eyes shining. ‘You feel as if you are being lifted tovards heaven.’

  The following day, just before lunch, Margo came rushing into the drawing-room in a state of panic.

  ‘Come quickly! Come quickly!’ she screamed. ‘Jeejee’s committing suicide!’

  We hurried outside and there, perched on the window-sill of his room, was Jeejee, clad in nothing but a loincloth.

  ‘He’s got one of those trances again,’ said Margo, as if it were an infectious disease.

  Mother straightened her glasses and stared upwards. Jeejee started to sway gently.

  ‘Go upstairs and grab him, Les,’ said Mother. ‘Quickly. I’ll keep him talking.’

  The fact that Jeejee was raptly silent did not occur to her. Leslie rushed into the house. Mother cleared her throat.

  ‘Jeejee, dear,’ she fluted, ‘I don’t think it’s very wise of you to be up there. Why don’t you come down and have lunch?’

  Jeejee did come down, but not quite as Mother intended. He stepped gaily out into space and, accompanied by horrified cries from Mother and Margo, fell earthwards. He crashed into the grapevine some ten feet beneath his window, sending a shower of grapes on to the flagstones. Fortunately, the vine was an old and sinewy one and it held Jeejee’s slight weight.

  ‘My God!’ he shouted. ‘Vere am I?’

  ‘In the grapevine,’ screamed Margo excitedly. ‘You agitated yourself there.’

  ‘Don’t move till we get a ladder,’ said Mother faintly.

  We got a ladder and extricated the tousled Jeejee from the depths of the vine. He was bruised and scratched but otherwise unhurt. Everyone’s nerves were soothed with brandy and we sat down to a late lunch. By the time evening came, Jeejee had convinced himself that he had in fact succeeded in levitating himself.

  ‘If my toes had not become entangled in the pernicious vine, I vould have gone sailing around the house,’ he said, lying bandaged but happy on the sofa. ‘Vhat an achievement!’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ll be happier if you don’t practise while you are staying here,’ said Mother. ‘My nerves won’t stand it.’

  ‘I vill come back from Persia and spend my birthday with you, my dear Mrs Durrell,’ said Jeejee, ‘and I vill then report progress.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want a repetition of today,’ said Mother severely. ‘You might have killed yourself.’

  Two days later Jeejeebuoy, still covered with sticking plaster but undaunted, left for Persia.

  ‘I wonder if he will come back for his birthday,’ said Margo. ‘If he does, let’s have a special party for him.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ said Mother. ‘He’s such a sweet boy, but so… erratic, so… unsafe.’

  ‘Well, he’s the only guest we’ve had who could really be described as having paid a flying visit,’ said Leslie.

  6

  The Royal Occasion

  Kings and Bears oft worry their keepers.

  SCOTTISH PROVERB

  In those halcyon days we spent in Corfu it could be said that every day was a special day, specially coloured, specially arranged, so that it differed completely from the other three hundred and sixty-four and was memorable because of this. But there is one day in particular which stands out in my mind, for it involved not only the family and their circle of acquaintances but the entire population of Corfu.

  It was the day that King George returned to Greece and nothing like it for colour, excitement and intrigue had ever been experienced in the island. Even the difficulties of organizing St Spiridion’s procession paled into insignificance beside this event.

  I first heard about the honour that was to fall on Corfu from my tutor, Mr Kralefsky. He was so overwhelmed with excitement that he took scant interest in the cock linnet I had been at considerable pains to procure for him.

  ‘Great news, dear boy, great news! Good morning, good morning,’ he greeted me, his large soulful eyes brimming with tears of emotion, his shapely hands flapping to and fro and his head bobbing with excitement below his hump-back. ‘A proud day for this island, by Jove! Yes indeed, a proud day for Greece, but an especially proud one for this, our island. Er… what? Oh, the linnet… Yes. Nice birdie… tweet, tweet. But, as I was saying, what a triumph for us here in this little realm set in a sea of blue, as Shakespeare has it, to have the King visit us.’

  This, I thought, was more like it. I could raise a faint enthusiasm for a real king, if only for the fringe benefits that might accrue. Which king was it, I inquired, and would I have a holiday when he came?

  ‘Why, the King of Greece, King George,’ said Mr Kralefsky, shocked by my ignorance. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  I pointed out that we did not have the dubious benefits of a wireless and
so, for the most part, lived in a state of blissful ignorance.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Kralefsky, gazing at me rather worriedly, as if blaming himself for my lack of knowledge, ‘well, we had Metaxas, as you know, and he was a dictator. Now, mercifully, they’ve got rid of him, odious man, so now His Majesty can come back.’

  When, I inquired, had they got rid of Metaxas? Nobody had told me.

  ‘Why, you remember, surely!’ cried Kralefsky. ‘You must remember – when we had the revolution and that cake shop was so badly damaged by the machine-gun bullets. Such unsafe things, I always think, machine-guns.’

  I did remember the revolution because it had given me three days’ blissful holiday from my lessons and the cake shop had been one of my favourite shops. But I had not connected this with Metaxas. Would there, I inquired hopefully, be another shop disembowelled by machine-gun fire when the King came?

  ‘No, no,’ said Kralefsky shocked. ‘No, it’ll be a most gay occasion. Everyone en fête, as they say. Well, it’s such exciting news that I think we might be forgiven if we take the morning off to celebrate. Come upstairs and help me feed the birds.’

  So we made our way up to the huge attic in which Kralefsky kept his collection of wild birds and canaries and spent a satisfying morning feeding them, Kralefsky dancing about the room waving the watering-can, his feet scrunching on the fallen seed as if it were a shingle beach, singing snatches of the ‘Marseillaise’ to himself.

  Over lunch I imparted the news of the King’s visit to the family. They each received it in their characteristic ways.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ said Mother, ‘I’d better start working out menus.’

  ‘He’s not coming to stay here, thank God,’ Larry pointed out.

  ‘I know that, dear,’ said Mother, ‘but… er… there’ll be all sorts of parties and things I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Larry.

  ‘Because they always do,’ said Mother. ‘When we were in India we always had parties during the durbar.’

  ‘This is not India,’ said Larry, ‘so I don’t intend to waste my time working out the stabling for elephants. The whole thing will have a disruptive enough effect on the even tenor of our ways as it is, mark my words.’

  ‘If we’re having parties, can I have some new clothes, Mother?’ asked Margo eagerly. ‘I really haven’t got a thing to wear.’

  ‘I wonder if they’ll fire a salute,’ mused Leslie. ‘They’ve only got those old Venetian cannons, but I should think they’d be damned dangerous. I wonder if I ought to pop in and see the Commandant of the Fort.’

  ‘You keep out of it,’ Larry advised. ‘They want to welcome the man, not assassinate him.’

  ‘I saw some lovely red silk the other day,’ said Margo, ‘in that little shop… you know, the one where you turn right by Theodore’s laboratory?’

  ‘Yes, dear, how nice,’ said Mother, not listening. ‘I wonder if Spiro can get me some turkeys?’

  But the effect of the Royal Visit on the family paled into insignificance in comparison with the traumatic effect it had on Corfu as a whole. It was pointed out, by somebody who should have known better, that not only was the island going to be graced by a visit from the monarch but the whole episode would be particularly symbolic as when the King arrived in Corfu he would be setting foot on Greek soil for the first time since his exile. At this thought the Corfiotes lashed themselves into a fever of activity and before long so complicated and so acrimonious had the preparations become that we were forced to go into town each day to sit on the Platia with the rest of Corfu to learn the news of the latest scandal.

  The Platia, laid out with its great arches to resemble the Rue de Rivoli by French architects in the early days of the French occupation of Corfu, was the hub of the island. Here you would sit at little tables under the arches or beneath the shimmering trees and, sooner or later, you would see everyone on the island and hear every facet of every scandal. One sat there drinking quietly and, sooner or later, all the protagonists in the drama were washed up at one’s table.

  ‘I am Corfu,’ said Countess Malinopoulos. ‘Therefore it is incumbent upon me to form the committee that works out how we are to welcome our gracious King.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, I do see that,’ Mother agreed nervously.

  The Countess, who resembled a raddled black crow wearing an orange wig, was a formidable force, there was no doubt, but the matter was too important to allow her to ride roughshod over everyone. Within a very short time there were no less than six welcoming committees, all struggling to persuade the Nomarch that their plans ought to take preference over all others. It was rumoured that he had an armed guard and slept in a locked room after an attempt by one of the female committee members to sacrifice her virginity in order to get his approval to her committee’s schemes.

  ‘Disgusting!’ trumpeted Lena Mavrokondas, rolling her black eyes and smacking her red lips as she wished that she had thought of the idea herself. ‘Imagine, my dears, a woman of her age trying to break into the Nomarch’s room, naked!’

  ‘It does seem a curious way to try to get his ear,’ Larry agreed innocently.

  ‘No, no, it is too absurd,’ Lena went on, deftly popping olives into her scarlet mouth as though she were loading a gun. ‘I’ve seen the Nomarch and I am sure he will agree to my committee being the official one. It is such shame the British flit is not in port; we could then have arrange a guard of honour. Oh, those lovely sailors in their uniform, they always look so clean and so virulent.’

  ‘The incidence of infectious diseases in the Royal Navy…’ Larry began, when Mother hastily interrupted.

  ‘Do tell us what your plans are, Lena,’ she said, glaring at Larry, who was on his eighth ouzo and inclined to be somewhat unreliable.

  ‘Soch plans, my dears, soch plans ve ’ave! This whole Platia vill be decorate in blue and vite, but alvays ve ’ave troubles with that fool Marko Paniotissa.’ Lena’s eyes rolled in despair.

  Marko, we knew, was a sort of inspired madman and we wondered how he had got on to the committee at all.

  ‘What does Marko want to do?’ asked Larry.

  ‘Donkeys!’ hissed Lena, as if it were an obscene word.

  ‘Donkeys?’ repeated Larry. ‘He wants to have donkeys? What does he think it is? An agricultural show?’

  ‘This I explain ’im,’ said Lena, ‘but alvays ’e wants to ’ave donkeys.’E says it is symbolic, like Christ’s ride into Jerusalem, so ’e vants blue and vite donkeys.’

  ‘Blue and white ones? You mean dyed?’ asked Mother. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘To match the Greek flags,’ said Lena, rising to her feet and facing us grimly, shoulders back, hands clenched; ‘but I tell ’im, “Marko,” I say, “you ’ave donkeys over my dead corpse.” ’

  She strode off down the Platia, every inch a daughter of Greece.

  The next one to stop at our table was Colonel Velvit, a tall, rather beautiful old man with a Byronic profile and an angular body that twitched and moved like a windblown marionette. With his curling white hair and flashing dark eyes, he looked incongruous in his Scout’s uniform, but he carried it off with dignity. Since his retirement his one interest in life was the local Scout troop and, while there were those unkind enough to say that his interest in Scouts was not entirely altruistic, he worked hard and had certainly never yet been caught.

  He accepted an ouzo and sat mopping his face with a lavender-scented handkerchief.

  ‘Those boys,’ he said plaintively, ‘those boys of mine will be the death of me. They are so high spirited.’

  ‘What they probably need is a bevy of nubile Girl Guides,’ said Larry. ‘Have you thought of that?’

  ‘It is no joke, my dear,’ said the Colonel, eyeing Larry morosely. ‘They are so full of high spirits I fear they will get up to some prank or other. I was simply horrified at what they did today and the Nomarch was most annoyed.’

  ‘The poor Nomarch appears to be getting it in the n
eck from every direction,’ said Leslie.

  ‘What did your Scouts do?’ asked Mother.

  ‘Well, as you know, my dear Mrs Durrell, I am training them to put on a special demonstration for His Majesty on the evening of his arrival.’ The Colonel sipped his drink delicately like a cat. ‘First, they march out, some dressed in blue and some in white, in front of the… how do you call it?… dais! Exactly so, the dais. And they form a square and salute the King. Then, at the word of command they change positions and form the Greek flag. It’s a very striking sight, though I say it myself.’

  He paused, drained his glass and sat back.

  ‘Well, the Nomarch wanted to see how we were progressing so he came along and stood on the dais, representing the King, as it were. Then I gave the command and the troop marched out.’

  He closed his eyes and a small shudder shook him.

  ‘Do you know what they did?’ he asked, in a small voice. ‘I have never felt so ashamed. They marched out, stopped in front of the Nomarch and gave the Fascist salute. Boy Scouts! The Fascist salute!’

  ‘Did they shout “ Heil Nomarch”?’ asked Larry.

  ‘Mercifully, no,’ said Colonel Velvit. ‘For a moment I was paralysed with shock and then, hoping that the Nomarch had not noticed, I gave the command to form the flag. They moved about and then, to my horror, the Nomarch was confronted by a blue and white swastika. He was furious. He almost cancelled our part in the proceedings. What a blow to the Scout movement that would have been!’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mother, ‘but they’re only children, after all.’

  ‘That’s true, my dear Mrs Durrell, but I cannot have people saying that I am training a group of Fascists,’ said Colonel Velvit earnestly. ‘They’ll be saying next that I plan to take over Corfu.’

  During the ensuing days, as the time of the great event grew nearer, the island’s inhabitants became more and more frenzied and tempers grew shorter and shorter. Countess Malinopoulos was now no longer speaking to Lena Mavrokondas and she in her turn was not speaking to Colonel Velvit because his Boy Scouts had given her a gesture of unmistakably biological nature as they passed by her house. All the leaders of the village bands, who always took part in the St Spiridion’s procession, had quarrelled bitterly with each other over procedure in the march past, and one evening on the Platia we were treated to the sight of three incensed tuba players chasing a bass drummer, all in full uniform and carrying their instruments. The tuba players, obviously driven beyond endurance, cornered the drummer, tore his instrument from him and jumped on it. Immediately, the Platia was a seething mass of infuriated bandsmen locked in combat. Mr Kralefsky, who was an innocent bystander, received a nasty cut on the back of the head from a flying cymbal and old Mrs Kukudopoulos, who was exercising her two spaniels between the trees, had to pick up her skirts and run for it. This incident (everybody said, when she died the next year), took years off her life, but as she was ninety-five when she died this was scarcely credible. Soon nobody was on speaking terms with anybody, though they all talked to us for we kept strictly neutral. Captain Creech, whom no one suspected of possessing a patriotic streak of any sort, was wildly excited by the whole thing, and, to everyone’s annoyance, went from committee to committee spreading gossip, singing bawdy songs, pinching unsuspecting and unprotected bosoms and buttocks, and generally making a nuisance of himself.