فصل 14

XIV

Saturday afternoon, the first of March. I was leaning against a rock facing the sea, writing. That day I had seen the first swallow and I was happy. The exorcism of Buddha was flowing without hindrance onto the paper, and my struggle with him had become calmer; I was no longer in a desperate hurry, and I was sure of my deliverance.

Suddenly I heard steps on the pebbles. I raised my eyes and saw our old siren rolling along the shore, decked out like a frigate. She was hot and short of breath. She seemed to be worried about something.

“Is there a letter?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes!” I answered with a laugh, and rose to welcome her. “He sends you lots of greetings; says he’s thinking about you day and night. He can hardly eat or drink, he finds the separation so unbearable.” “Is that all he says?” the unhappy woman asked, gasping for breath.

I was sorry for her. I took his letter from my pocket and pretended that I was reading it. The old siren opened her toothless mouth, her little eyes blinked and she listened breathlessly.

I made believe I was reading, but, as I got rather involved, I pretended I had difficulty in making out the writing: “Yesterday, boss, I went into a cheap eating-house for a meal. I was hungry… When I saw an absolutely beautiful young girl come in, a real goddess… My God! She looked just like my Bouboulina! And straight away my eyes began spouting water like a fountain, I had a lump in my throat… I couldn’t swallow! I got up, paid my bill and left. And I who only think of the saints once in a blue moon, I was so deeply moved, boss, I ran to Saint Minas’s church and lit a candle to him. ‘Saint Minas,’ I said in my prayer, ‘let me have good news of the angel I love. May our wings be united very soon!’” “Ha! Ha! Ha!” went Dame Hortense, her face beaming with joy.

“What are you laughing at my good woman?” I asked, stopping to get my breath and concoct some more lies. “What are you laughing at? This makes me feel more like weeping.” “If only you knew… if only you knew…” she chuckled and burst into laughter.

“What?”

“Wings… That’s what he calls feet, the rascal. That’s the name he gives them when we’re alone. May our wings be united, he says… Ha! Ha! Ha!” “Listen to what comes next, then. You’ll be really astounded…”

I turned over the page and made believe I was reading again:

“And today, as I was passing a barber’s shop, the barber emptied outside his bowl of soapy water. The whole street was filled with the scent. And I thought of Bouboulina again and began to cry. I can’t stay away from her any longer, boss… I shall go off my head… Look, I’ve even written poetry. I couldn’t sleep two nights ago and I began writing a little poem for her… I hope you’ll read it to her so that she’ll see how I’m suffering… “Ah! if only on some footpath you and I could meet. And it were wide enough to hold our rue! Let me be ground to crumbs or pie-meat, My shattered bones would still have strength to run to you!” Dame Hortense, her eyes languid and half-closed, was listening happily, all attention. She even took the little ribbon from her neck, where it was nearly strangling her, and set her wrinkles free for a moment. She was silent and smiling. Happy and contented, her mind seemed to be drifting far away.

The month of March, fresh grass, little red, yellow and purple flowers, limpid water where groups of white and black swans were mating as they sang. The females white, the males black and with half-open, crimson beaks. Great blue Moray eels rose gleaming from the water and twined themselves round big yellow serpents. Dame Hortense was fourteen again, dancing on oriental carpets in Alexandria, Beirut, Smyrna, Constantinople, then off Crete on the polished decks of ships… She could not remember very clearly now. It was becoming confused, her breast was heaving, the shores were splitting. And suddenly, while she was dancing, the sea was covered with vessels with golden prows. On their decks, multi-coloured tents and silken oriflames. A whole procession of pashas came from the tents with golden tassels upright on their fezes, wealthy old beys on pilgrimages with hands full of rich offerings, and their melancholy, beardless sons. Admirals came, too, with their shining three-cornered hats, and sailors with their dazzling white collars and broad, flapping trousers. Young Cretans followed, in their billowing breeches of light-blue cloth, yellow boots, and black kerchiefs knotted over their hair. A good last came Zorba, huge, grown lean from love-making, with a massive engagement ring on his finger, a crown of orange-blossom on his greying hair… From the ships came all the men she had known in her adventurous lifetime, not one was missing, not even the old gap-toothed and hunchbacked boatman who had taken her out on the water one evening at Constantinople. Night had fallen and no one could see them. They all came out, all of them, and in the background, mating away, oho! the Morays, the Serpents, the Swans!

The men came and joined her; they formed clusters, like amorous snakes in the Spring, who rise hissing in a sheaf. And in the centre, all white and naked, and glistening with sweat, lips parted to show her little pointed teeth, rigid, insatiable, her breasts erect, hissed a Dame Hortense of fourteen, twenty, thirty, forty, sixty summers. Nothing was lost, no lover had died! In her wilted breast they were all resuscitated, in full parade dress. As if Dame Hortense were a noble three-masted frigate and all her lovers—she had seen forty-five working years—were boarding her, climbing into the holds, onto the gunwale, into the rigging, while she sailed along, much-battered and much-caulked, towards the last great haven she had longed for so ardently: marriage. And Zorba assumed a thousand faces: Turkish, European, Armenian, Arab, Greek, and, as she hugged him, Dame Hortense hugged the entire, blessed and interminable procession… The old siren, all at once, realised that I had ceased reading; her vision suddenly stopped and she raised her heavy lids: “Doesn’t he say anything else?” she asked in a tone of reproach, licking her lips greedily.

“What more do you want, Madame Hortense? Don’t you see? The whole letter talks about you and nothing else. Look, four sheets of it! And there’s a heart here in the corner, too. Zorba says he drew it himself, with his own hand. Look, love has pierced it through, and underneath, look, two doves embracing, and on their wings, in small microscopic letters in red ink, two names intertwined: Hortense—Zorba!” There were neither doves nor names, but the old siren’s small eyes had filled with tears and could see anything they wished.

“Nothing else? Nothing else?” she asked again, still not satisfied.

Wings, the barber’s soapy water, the little doves—that was all very well, a lot of fine words all that, nothing but air. Her practical woman’s mind wanted something else, something more tangible, solid. How many times in her life had she heard this sort of nonsense! And what good had it done her? After years of hard work, she had been left all alone, high and dry.

“Nothing else?” she murmured again reproachfully. “Nothing else?”

She looked at me with eyes like those of a hind at bay. I took pity on her.

“He says something else very, very important, Madame Hortense,” I said. “That’s why I kept it till the end.” “What is it…?” she said with a sigh.

“He writes that, as soon as he gets back, he’ll go on his knees to implore you, with tears in his eyes, to marry him. He can’t wait any longer. He wants to make you, he says, his own little wife, Madame Hortense Zorba, so that you need never be separated again.” This time the tears really began to flow. This was the supreme joy, the ardently desired haven; this was what she had hitherto regretted not having in her life! Tranquillity and lying in an honest bed, nothing more!

She covered her eyes with her hands.

“All right,” she said, with the condescension of a great lady, “I accept. But please write to him; say that here in the village there are no orange-blossom wreaths. He’ll have to bring them from Candia. He must bring two white candles as well, with pink ribbons and some good sugared almonds. Then he must buy me a wedding dress, a white one, and silk stockings and satin court-shoes. We’ve got sheets, tell him, so he needn’t bring any. We’ve also got a bed.” She arranged her list of orders, already making an errand-boy of her husband. She stood up. She had suddenly taken on the look of a dignified married woman.

“I’ve something to ask you,” she said. “Something serious.” Then she waited, moved.

“Go on, Madame Hortense, I’m at your service.”

“Zorba and I are very fond of you. You are very kind, and you’ll not disgrace us. Would you care to be our witness?” I shuddered. Formerly, at my parent’s house, we had had an old serving-woman named Diamandoula, who was over sixty, an old maid with a moustache, half-crazed by virginity, nervous, shrivelled-up and flat-chested. She fell in love with Mitso, the local grocer’s boy, a dirty, well-fed and beardless young peasant lad.

“When is it you be going to marry me?” she used to ask him every Sunday. “Marry me now! How can you wait so long? I can’t bear it!” “I can’t either!” said the cunning grocer’s boy, who was getting round her for her custom. “I can’t hold out any longer, Diamandoula; but all the same, we can’t get married till I’ve a moustache as well as you…” The years went past like that, and old Diamandoula waited. Her nerves became calmer, she had fewer headaches, her bitter lips that had never been kissed learned to smile. She washed the clothes more carefully now, broke fewer dishes, and never burned the food.

“Will you come and be our witness, young master?” she asked me one evening on the sly.

“Certainly I will, Diamandoula,” I answered, a lump forming in my throat, out of pity for her.

The very suggestion had wrung my heart; that is why I shuddered when I heard Dame Hortense ask the same thing.

“Certainly I would,” I replied. “It will be an honour, Madame Hortense.” She rose, patted the little ringlets that hung from beneath her little hat and licked her lips.

“Good night,” she said. “Good night, and may he soon come back to us!” I watched her waddling away, swaying her old body with all the affected airs of a young girl. Joy gave her wings, and her twisted old court-shoes made deep impressions in the sand.

She had hardly rounded the headland than shrill cries and wailing came from along the shore.

I leaped up and ran in the direction from which the noise was coming. On the opposite headland women were howling as though they were singing a funeral dirge. I climbed a rock and looked. Men and women were running up from the village; behind them dogs were barking. Two or three were on horseback and going on ahead. A thick cloud of dust was rising from the ground.

“There’s been an accident,” I thought, and ran round the bay.

The hubbub was growing more intense. Two or three spring clouds stood still in the light of the setting sun. The Fig Tree of Our Young Lady was covered with fresh green leaves.

Suddenly Dame Hortense staggered up to me. She was running back again, dishevelled, out of breath, and one of her shoes had come off. She was holding it in her hand and was crying as she ran.

“My God… my God…” she sobbed as she saw me. She stumbled and nearly fell.

I caught her.

“What are you crying for? What’s happened?” And I helped her put on her worn shoe.

“I’m frightened… I’m frightened…”

“Of what?”

“Of death.”

She had scented with terror the smell of death in the air.

I took her limp arm to lead her to the place, but her ageing body resisted and trembled.

“I don’t want to… I don’t want to…” she cried. The poor wretch was terrified of going close to a place where death had appeared. Charon must not see her and remember her… Like all old people our poor siren tried to hide herself by taking on the green colour of grass, or by taking on an earthly colour, so that Charon could not distinguish her from earth or grass. She had tucked her head into her fat, rounded shoulders, and was trembling.

She dragged herself to an olive tree, spread out her patched coat and sank to the ground.

“Put this over me, will you? Put this over me and you go and have a look.” “Are you feeling cold?”

“I am. Cover me up.”

I covered her up as well as I could, so that she was indistinguishable from the earth, then I went off.

I came up to the headland and now clearly heard the songs of lamentation. Mimiko came running past me.

“What is it, Mimiko?” I asked.

“He’s drowned himself! Drowned himself!” he shouted without stopping.

“Who?”

“Pavli, Mavrandoni’s son.”

“Why?”

“The widow…”

The word hung in the evening air and conjured up the dangerous, supple body of that woman.

I reached the rocks and there found the whole village assembled. The men were silent, bare-headed; the women, with their kerchiefs thrown back over their shoulders, were tearing their hair and uttering piercing cries. A swollen, livid corpse lay on the pebbled beach. Old Mavrandoni was standing motionless over it, gazing at it. With his right hand he was leaning on his staff. With his left he was holding his curly grey beard.

“A curse on you, widow!” a shrill voice said suddenly. “God shall make you pay for this!” A woman leaped up and turned to the men.

“Isn’t there a single man in the village to throw her across his knees and cut her throat like a sheep? Bah! you cowards!” And she spat at the men, who looked at her without a word.

Kondomanolio, the cafe proprietor, answered her:

“Don’t humiliate us, crazy Katerina,” he shouted, “don’t humiliate us, there are still some men, some Palikaria, in our village, you’ll see!” I could not contain myself.

“Shame on you all!” I cried. “In what way is that woman responsible? It was fated. Don’t you fear God?” But no one replied.

Manolakas, the drowned man’s cousin, bent his huge body, lifted the corpse in his arms and took the first path back to the village.

The women were screaming, scratching their faces and tearing their hair. When they saw the body was being carried away, they ran to clasp it. But old Mavrandoni, brandishing his staff, drove them off and took the head of the procession, followed by the women singing dirges. Lastly, in silence, came the men.

They disappeared into the twilight. You could hear the peaceful breathing of the sea once more. I looked around me. I was alone.

“I’ll go back home,” I said. “Another day, O God, which has had its measure of sorrow!” Deep in thought, I followed the pathway. I admired these people, so closely and warmly involved in human sufferings: Dame Hortense, Zorba, the widow, and the pale Pavil who had so bravely thrown himself in the sea to drown his sorrow, and Deli- Katerina shouting for them to cut the widow’s throat like a sheep, and Mavrandoni refusing to weep or even to speak in front of the others. I alone was impotent and rational, my blood did not boil, nor did I love or hate with passion. I still wanted to put things right, in cowardly fashion, by laying everything at destiny’s door.

In the twilight I could just see uncle Anagnosti still sitting there on a stone. He had propped his chin on his long stick and was gazing at the sea.

I called to him, but he did not hear. I went up to him; he saw me and shook his head.

“Poor humanity!” he murmured. “The waste of a young life! The poor boy couldn’t bear his sorrow, so he threw himself in the sea and was drowned. Now he’s saved.” “Saved?”

“Saved, my son, yes, saved. What could he have done with his life? If he’d married the widow, there would very soon have been quarrels, perhaps even dishonour. She’s just like a broodmare, that shameless woman! As soon as she sees a man, she starts to whinny. And if he hadn’t married her, it would have been the torment of his life, because the idea would have been fixed in his head that he’d missed a great happiness! A yawning abyss in front, a precipice behind!” “Don’t talk like that, uncle Anagnosti; you’d bring despair to any one who heard you!” “Come on, don’t be so frightened. No one can hear me, except you. And even if they could, would they believe me? Look, has there ever been a luckier man than me? I’ve had fields, vineyards, olive groves, and a two-storied house. I’ve been rich and a village elder. I lighted on a good, docile woman who gave me only sons. I’ve never seen her raise her eyes to me in defiance, and all my children are good fathers. I’ve nothing to complain about. I’ve had grandchildren, too. What more could I want? My roots go deep. And yet if I had to start my life all over again I’d put a stone round my neck, like Pavli, and throw myself in the sea. Life is hard, my God it is; even the luckiest life is hard, a curse on it!” “But what is there you lack, uncle Anagnosti? What are you complaining of?” “I lack nothing, I tell you! But you go and question men’s hearts!”

He was silent a moment, and looked again at the darkening sea.

“Well, Pavli, you did the right thing!” he cried, waving his stick. “Let the women scream; they’re women and have no brains. You’re saved now, Pavli—your father knows it and that’s why he didn’t make a sound!” He scanned the sky and the mountains which were already growing indistinct.

“Here’s the night,” he said. “Better get back.”

He stopped all of a sudden, seeming to regret the words he had let drop, as if he had betrayed a great secret and now wanted to recover it.

He placed his shrivelled hand on my shoulder.

“You’re young,” he said, smiling at me; “don’t listen to the old. If the world did heed them, it would rush headlong to its destruction. If a widow crosses your path, get hold of her! Get married, have children, don’t hesitate! Troubles were made for young men!” I reached my beach, lit the fire and made my evening tea. I was tired and hungry, and I ate ravenously, giving myself up entirely to animal pleasure.

Suddenly Mimiko pushed his little flattened head through the window, looked at me crouching by the fire and eating. He smiled cunningly.

“What have you come for, Mimiko?”

“I’ve brought you something, boss… from the widow… A basket of oranges. She says they’re the last from her garden…” “From the widow?” I said with a start. “Why did she send me them?”

“Because of the good word you put in for her to the villagers this afternoon, so she says.” “What good word?”

“How do I know? I’m just telling you what she said, that’s all!”

He emptied the oranges on the bed. The whole hut became redolent with their smell.

“Tell her I thank her very much for her present, and I advise her to be very careful. She must watch her step and not show herself in the village on any account, do you hear? She must stay indoors for a time, until this unhappy business has been forgotten. Do you understand, Mimiko?” “Is that all, boss?”

“That’s all. You can go now.”

Mimiko winked at me.

“Is that all?”

“Get away!”

He went. I peeled one of the juicy oranges; it was as sweet as honey. I lay down, fell asleep, and the whole night through I wandered in orange groves. A warm wind was blowing; I had bared my chest to the wind and had a sprig of sweet basil behind my ear. I was a young peasant of twenty, and I roamed about the orange grove whistling and waiting. For whom was I waiting?—I do not know. But my heart was ready to burst for joy. I twirled up my moustache and listened, the whole night through, to the sea sighing like a woman behind the orange trees.