Zorba the Greek Read online

  "'Why, from inside there,' he tells me, pointing to the curtain. And he was right, too, for the next thing a bell rings, and the curtain opens and there's this Kotopouli as they say, up in front of you on the stage. But don't ask me why they call her a chicken: she's a woman, all right, with all the bits and pieces. So she just turns around and wags her tail up and down, and when they've had enough of that, they start clapping their hands and she scuttles off."

  The villagers rocked with laughter. Sfakianonikoli was annoyed and looked shamefaced. He turned to the door.

  "Look at that rain coming down," he said, to change the subject.

  Everyone's eyes followed his. At that very moment a woman ran by, with a mass of hair hanging over her shoulders and holding her black skirts up to her knees. She had a good, round figure, her clothes clung to her, revealing a firm, alluring body.

  I started. What beast of prey is that? I thought. She appeared to me lithe and dangerous, a devourer of men.

  The woman turned her head for an instant and gave a rapid, dazzling look into the café.

  "Holy Virgin!" muttered a callow youth with a soft, downy beard, who was sitting near the window.

  "A curse on that vamp!" roared Manolakas, the village constable. "A curse on you; you set a man on fire and then let him burn!"

  The youth by the window began to hum, at first softly and hesitatingly. Gradually his voice became hoarse:

  ... The widow's -pillow has a fragrant smell of quincel I too have known that scent and never have slept since!

  "Shut up!" Mavrandoni shouted, brandishing his hookah tube.

  The young man kept quiet. An old man leaned over Manolakas, the constable.

  "Now your uncle's getting angry," he whispered. "If she ever falls into his hands he'd hack the poor wretch to pieces. May God have mercy on her!"

  "Ah, old Androulio," said Manolakas, "I do believe you are trailing after the widow's skirts, too. And you a verger! Aren't you ashamed?"

  "Listen to me. God have mercy on her! Maybe you haven't noticed the kind of children who are born in the village of late? ... Blessed be the widow, I say! She's, as you might say, the mistress of the whole village: you put out the light and you imagine it's not the wife you take in your arms, but the widow. And, mark you, that's why our village brings into the world such fine children nowadays!"

  After a moment's silence, old Androulio murmured:

  "Good luck to the thighs that embrace her! Ah, my friend, if only I were twenty, like young Pavli, Mavrandoni's boy!"

  "Now we'll see her double back home!" someone said, laughing.

  They all turned towards the door. The rain was pelting down. The water was gurgling over the stones. Now and then lightning flashed across the sky. Zorba was breathless since the passing of the widow. He could not contain himself any longer, and he sighed to me:

  "The rain's stopping, boss," he said. "Let's go!"

  A young boy, barefoot, dishevelled and with great wild-looking eyes appeared at the door. That was just how the icon painters portray St. John the Baptist—with eyes enormously enlarged by hunger and prayer.

  "Hello, Mimiko!" several shouted, laughing.

  Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time. Mimiko was the simpleton of this village.

  "Friends," Mimiko stuttered in his effeminate voice. "Friends, the widow Sourmelina has lost her ewe. A reward of a gallon of wine for whoever finds it!"

  "Get out!" shouted old Mavrandoni. "Get out!"

  Terrified, Mimiko curled up in a corner near the door.

  "Sit down, Mimiko, have a drink of raki, so you don't catch cold!" uncle Anagnosti said, feeling sorry for him. "What'd become of our village if we had no idiot?"

  A weedy-looking young man, with watery blue eyes, appeared on the threshold. He was out of breath and his hair, which was flattened on his forehead, was dripping with water.

  "Hello, Pavli!" Manolakas shouted. "Hello, cousin! Take a seat."

  Mavrandoni looked round at his son and frowned.

  "Is that my son?" he muttered to himself. "That little pip-squeak! Who the devil does he take after? I'd like to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and thump him on the ground like a young octopus!"

  Zorba was like a cat on hot bricks. The widow had inflamed his senses, he could no longer stand being within these four walls.

  "Let's go, boss, let's go," he whispered every second. "We'll burst in here!"

  It looked to him as if the clouds had dispersed and the sun come out.

  He turned to the café proprietor:

  "Who is that widow?" he asked, feigning indifference.

  "A brood mare," Kondomanolio replied.

  He put his fingers to his lips and gave a meaning glance at Mavrandoni, who had once more riveted his eyes on the floor.

  "A mare," he repeated. "Don't let's speak of her, lest we be damned!"

  Mavrandoni rose and wound the smoking-tube round the neck of his nargileh.

  "Excuse me," he said. "I'm going home. Pavli, follow me!"

  He led his son away. They passed in front of us and immediately disappeared in the rain. Manolakas also rose and followed them.

  Kondomanolio settled in Mavrandoni's chair.

  "Poor old Mavrandoni!" he said, in a voice so low it could not be heard from the neighboring tables. "He'll die of rage. It's a great misfortune which has struck his house. Only yesterday I heard Pavli myself, with my own ears, saying to his father: 'If she won't be my wife, I'll kill myself!' But that jade doesn't want to have anything to do with him. She tells him to run along and wipe his nose."

  "Let's go," Zorba repeated. At every word said about the widow he became more excited.

  The cocks began to crow; the rain was not quite so heavy.

  "Come on, then," I said, rising.

  Mimiko leapt from his corner and slipped out after us.

  The pebbles were gleaming; the doors running with water looked black; the little old women were coming out with baskets to look for snails.

  Mimiko came up to me and touched my arm.

  "A cigarette, master," he said. "It'll bring you good luck in love."

  I gave him the cigarette. He held out a skinny, sunburnt hand.

  "Give me a light, too!"

  I gave him a light; he drew the smoke in to his lungs and, with eyes half-closed, blew it out through his nostrils.

  "As happy as a pasha!" he murmured.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To the widow's garden. She said she'd give me some food if I spread the news about her ewe."

  We walked quickly. There were rifts in the clouds. The whole village was freshly washed and smiling.

  "Do you like the widow, Mimiko?" Zorba asked, with a sigh.

  Mimiko chuckled.

  "Friend, why shouldn't I like her? And haven't I come out of a sewer, like everyone else?"

  "Of a sewer?" I said, astounded. "What d'you mean, Mimiko?"

  "Well, from a mother's innards."

  I was amazed. Only a Shakespeare in his most creative moments, I thought, could have found an expression of such crude realism to portray the dark and repugnant mystery of birth.

  I looked at Mimiko. His eyes were large and ecstatic and they had a slight squint.

  "How do you spend your days, Mimiko?"

  "How d'you think? I live like a lord! I wake in the morning, I eat a crust. Then I do odd jobs for people, anywhere, anything, I run errands, cart manure, collect horse-dung, and I've got a fishing rod. I live with my aunt, mother Lenio, the professional mourner. You're bound to know her, everybody does. She's even been photographed. In the evening I go back home, drink a bowl of soup and a drop of wine, if there is any. If there isn't, I drink enough of God's water to make my belly swell like a drum. Then, good night!"

  "And won't you get married, Mimiko?"

  "What, me? I'm not a loony! Whatever are you asking now, friend? That I should saddle myself with trouble? A woman needs shoes! Where'd I
find any? Look, I go barefoot!"

  "Haven't you any boots?"

  "What d'you take me for? Of course I have! A man died last year and my aunt Lenio pulled them off his feet. I wear them at Easter and when I go to church and stare at the priest. Tben I pull them off, hang them round my neck, and come home."

  "What do you like best of all, Mimiko?"

  "First, bread. Ah, how I like that! All crisp and hot, 'specially if it's wheat bread. Then, wine. Then, sleep."

  "What about women?"

  "Fff! Eat, drink, and go to bed, I say. All the rest's just trouble!"

  "And the widow?"

  "Oh, leave her to the devil, I tell you, if you know what's good for you! Get thee behind me, Satan!"

  He spat three times and crossed himself.

  "Can you read?"

  "Now, look here, I'm not such a fool! When I was little I was dragged to school, but I was lucky. I caught typhus and became an idiot. That's how I managed to get out of that!"

  Zorba had had enough of my questionings. He could not think of anything save the widow.

  "Boss ..." he said, taking me by the arm. Then he turned to Mimiko and ordered him to walk on ahead. "We've got something to talk about.

  "Boss," he said, "this is where I count on you. Now, don't dishonor the male species! The god-devil sends you this choice morsel. You've got teeth. All right, get 'em into it. Stretch out your arm and take her! What did the Creator give us hands for? To take things! So, take 'em! I've seen loads of women in my time. But that damned widow makes the steeples rock!"

  "I don't want any trouble!" I replied angrily.

  I was irritated because in my heart of hearts I also had desired that all-powerful body which had passed by me like a wild animal in heat, distilling musk.

  "You don't want any trouble!" Zorba exclaimed in stupefaction. "And pray, what do you want, then?"

  I did not answer.

  "Life is trouble," Zorba continued. "Death, no. To live—do you know what that means? To undo your belt and look for trouble!"

  I still said nothing. I knew Zorba was right, I knew it, but I did not dare. My life had got on the wrong track, and my contact with men had become now a mere soliloquy. I had fallen so low that, if I had had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, I should have chosen the book.

  "Don't calculate, boss," Zorba continued. "Leave your figures alone, smash the blasted scales, shut up your grocer's shop, I tell you. Now's the time you're going to save or to lose your soul. Listen, boss, take a handkerchief, tie two or three pounds in it, make them gold ones, because the paper ones don't dazzle; and send them to the widow by Mimiko. Teach him what he is to say: 'The master of the mine sends you his best wishes and this little handkerchief. It's only a small thing, he said, but his love is big. He said, too, you weren't to worry about the ewe; if it's lost, don't bother, I'm here, don't be afraid! He says he saw you going by the café and he's fallen sick and only you can cure him!'

  "There now! Then the same evening you knock on the door. Must beat the iron while it's hot. You've lost your way, you tell her. It's dark, will she lend you a lantern. Or else you've suddenly come over dizzy and would like a glass of water. Or, better still, you buy another ewe and take it to her: 'Look, my lady,' you say, 'here's the ewe you lost. It was I who found it for you!' And the widow—listen to this, boss—the widow gives you the reward and you enter into ... God Almighty, if only I could ride your mare behind you—I tell you, boss, you'll enter into Paradise on horseback. If you're looking for any other paradise than that, my poor fellow, there is none! Don't listen to what the priests tell you, there's no other!"

  We must have been approaching the widow's garden, for Mimiko sighed and began in his stammering voice to sing his sorrow:

  Wine for the chestnut, honey for the wálnut! A lass for the lad, and a lad for the lass!

  Zorba stepped out on his long shanks, hís nostrils quivering. He stopped abruptly, drew in a long breath. He stared me straight in the eyes:

  "Well?..." he said.

  And he waited anxiously.

  "That'll do!" I replied harshly.

  And I quickened my pace.

  Zorba shook his head and growled something I did not catch.

  When we reached the hut, he sat on crossed legs, placed the santurí on his knees and lowered his head, lost in deep meditation. It was as if he were listening, with his head on his chest, to innumerable songs and trying to choose one, the most beautiful and most despairing of all. He at last made his choice and started a heart-rending air. From time to time he eyed me slantwise. I felt that what he could not or dare not tell me in words he was saying with the santurí. That I was wasting my life, that the widow and I were two insects who live but a second beneath the sun, then die for all eternity. Never more! Never more!

  Zorba leapt up. He had suddenly realized that he was tiring himself in vain. He leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and, after a moment, spoke.

  "I'm going to let you into a secret, boss, something a hodja[14] once told me in Salonica… I'm going to tell it to you, even if it doesn't do any good.

  "At that time I was a pedlar in Macedonia. I went into the villages to sell reels of thread, needles, the lives of the saints, benjamin and pepper. I had a rare voice, then, a real nightingale I was. You must know women also succumb to a voice. And what won't they succumb to—the jades! God only knows what goes on inside them! You may be as ugly as sin, lame or a hunchback, but if you've a soft voice and can sing the women completely lose their heads.

  "I was also peddling in Salonica and even went into the Turkish districts. And, it appears, my voice had so charmed a rich Muslim woman, the daughter of a pasha, that she could not sleep. She called an old hodja and filled his hands with mejidies. 'Aman!'[15] she said to him, 'go and tell the peddling Giaour to come. Aman! I must see him. I can't hold out any longer!'

  "The hodja came to find me. 'Listen, young Roumi,' he said to me. 'Come with me.' 'No,' I said. 'Where d'you want to take me to?' 'There's a pasha's daughter who's like spring water. She's waiting for you in her room. Come, little Roumi!' But I knew that at night they murdered Christian infidels in the Turkish districts. 'No, I'm not coming,' I said. 'Don't you fear God, Giaour?' 'Why should I?' 'Because, little Roumi, he who can sleep with a woman and does not, commits a great sin. My boy, if a woman calls you to share her bed and you don't go, your soul will be destroyed! That woman will sigh before God on judgment day, and that woman's sigh, whoever you may be and whatever your fine deeds, will cast you into Hell!'"

  Zorba sighed.

  "If Hell exists," he said, "I shall go to Hell, and that'll be the reason. Not because I've robbed, killed or committed adultery, no! All that's nothing. But I shall go to Hell because one night in Salonica a woman waited for me on her bed and I did not go to her…"

  He rose, lit the fire and started cooking our meal. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled scornfully.

  "You can knock forever on a deaf man's door!" he muttered.

  And, bending down, he began to blow the damp wood angrily.

  9

  THE DAYS were growing shorter, the light was quickly failing, and towards the end of each afternoon the heart became uneasy. A primitive terror seized us—that of our ancestors who during the winter months watched the sun go out a little earlier each day. "Tomorrow it will go out forever," they must have thought in despair, and spent thé entire night on the heights in fear and trembling.

  Zorba felt this uneasiness more deeply, more primitively than I. To escape from it he would not leave the galleries of the mine until the stars were shining in the sky.

  He had come across a seam of very good lignite, which did not produce much ash, was not very damp and was rich in calories. He was pleased. For in his mind our profits underwent marvellous transformations: they became travels, women and new adventures. He was waiting impatiently for the day when he would earn a fortune, when his wings would be suff
iciently big—"wings" was the name he gave to money—for him to fly away. He therefore spent whole nights trying out his miniature cable railway, always seeking the right slope for the tree trunks to move down slowly—gently, gently, he said, as if borne by angels.

  One day he took a large sheet of paper and some colored pencils and drew the mountain, the forest, the line, the trunks suspended from the cable and descending, each. endowed with two sky-blue wings. In the little rounded bay he drew black boats and green sailors, like líttle parrots, and mahones loaded with yellow tree trunks. A monk was drawn in each of the four corners, and from their mouths came pink ribbons on which was printed in black capital letters: "Great is the Lord and wonderful are his works!"

  For some days now Zorba had hastíly lít the fire and prepared the evening meal. When we had eaten he would run off to the village. A little later he would return scowling.

  "Where have you been again, Zorba?" I would ask him.

  "Never you mind, boss," he would say, and change the subject.

  When he returned one evening, he asked me anxiously:

  "Is there a God—yes or no? What d'you think, boss? And if there is one—anything's possible—what d'you think he looks like?"

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  "I'm not joking, boss. I think of God as being exactly like me. Only bigger, stronger, crazier. And immortal, into the bargain. He's sitting on a pile of soft sheepskins and his hut's the sky. It isn't made out of old petrol-cans, like ours is, but clouds. In his right hand he's holding not a knife or a pair of scales—those damned instruments are meant for butchers and grocers—no, he's holding a large sponge full of water, like a rain-cloud. On his right is Paradise, on his left Hell. Here comes a soul; the poor little thing's quite naked, because it's lost its cloak—its body, I mean—and it's shivering. God looks at it, laughing up his sleeve, but he plays the bogy man: 'Come here,' he roars, 'come here, you miserable wretch!'