Zorba the Greek Read online

  "My Canavaro, my little Canavaro!" she cooed amorously.

  The parrot, recognizing her voice, opened his eyes, clutched hold of the bars of his cage and started to cry in the hoarse voice of a drowning man: "Canavaro! Canavaro!"

  "Present!" cried Zorba, once more applying his hands to those old knees which had seen so much service, this time as if he wanted to take possession of them. The old cabaret singer wriggled in her chair and again opened her little puckered lips.

  "I, too, have struggled valiantly, breast to breast… But the bad days came. Crete was liberated, the fleets had orders to leave. 'And what is to become of me?' I said, seizing the four beards. 'Where are you going to leave me? I have got used to grandeur, to champagne and roast chicken; I have got used to handsome little sailors saluting me; I shall be four times a widow! What is going to become of me, my lords and admirals?'

  "Oh, they just laughed—that's men for you! Tbey loaded me with English and Italian pounds, roubles and napoleons. I stuffed them in my stockings, in my bodice and in my shoes. On the last evening I wept and sobbed so much the Admirals took pity on me. They filled the bath with champagne, plunged me in it—we were very familiar by then—and they drank the champagne from the bath in my honor. They got drunk and put out the light…

  "In the morning, I could smell all their perfumes on top of each other: the violet, the eau-de-Cologne, the musk and the patchouli. The four great powers—England, France, Russia and Italy—I held them here, here on my knees, and I went like this with them ..."

  Dame Hortense held out her plump little arms and moved them up and down, as if she were bouncíng a baby on her lap.

  "There, like that! Like that!

  "At daybreak they began to fire off their guns. I swear to this on my honor, they fired off their guns, and a white boat with twelve oarsmen came out to fetch me and set me on shore."

  She took her little handkerchief out and began to weep, inconsolably.

  "My Bouboulina," Zorba cried rapturously, "shut your eyes ... shut your eyes, my treasure. I am Canavaro!"

  "Hands off, I said!" our good lady simpered. "Just look at your handsome self! Where are the golden epaulettes, the three-cornered hat, the perfumed beard? Ah, well then!..."

  She squeezed Zorba's hand gently and started to weep again.

  It was becomíng cooler. We fell silent a while. The sea, behind the bamboos, was sighing. It had at last become gentle and peaceful. The wind had fallen, the sun sank to rest. Two crows passed over our heads and their wings whistled as if a piece of silk was being torn—the silk chemise of the songstress.

  The evening light fell like a spray of golden dust over the yard. Dame Hortense's fanciful lips caught alight and quivered in the evening breeze as if they wanted to take flight and carry the fire to her neighbors' heads. The golden light fell on her half-bared bosom, her parted knees which had grown fat with age, the lines in her neck, her worn-out court shoes.

  Our old siren shuddered. Half-closing her little eyes, which were reddened by her tears and the wine, she looked first at me, then at Zorba, whose lips were parched, and who was fascinated by her bosom. She looked at each of us with a questioning air, trying to see whích of us was Canavaro.

  "My Bouboulína," Zorba cooed passionately, whilst pressing his knee against hers. "Don't worry, there's no God and no devil. Raise your little head, rest your cheek on your hand and give us a song. To hell with death!"

  Zorba was on fire. With his left hand he twisted his moustache, and his right hand strayed over the intoxicated songstress. His words were breathless, his eyes languid. It was certainly not this mummified and outrageously painted old woman he was seeing before him, but the entire "female species," as it was his custom to call women. The individual disappeared, the features were obliterated, whether young or senile, beautiful or ugly—those were mere unimportant variations. Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite.

  That was the face Zorba was seeing and talking to, and desiring. Dame Hortense was only an ephemeral and transparent mask which Zorba tore away to kiss the eternal mouth.

  "Lift your snow-white neck, my treasure," he repeated in his gasping, pleading voice. "Lift your snow-white neck and sing us the song!"

  The old songstress rested her cheek on her plump hand, which was all cracked with washing clothes; her eyes became languorous. She uttered a wild and woeful cry, then began her favorite song, repeating it many times as she gazed at Zorba with swooning, half-closed eyes—she had already made her choice.

  Au fil de mes jours Pourquoi t'ai-je rencontré ...

  Zorba leapt up, went for his santuri, sat on the ground Turkish fashion, undraped his instrument, rested it on his lap and stretched his great hands.

  "Oh! Oh!" he bellowed. "Take a knife and cut my throat, Bouboulina!"

  When night began to fall, when the evening star revolved in the sky, and the coaxing voice of the santuri rose, abetting Zorba's aims, Dame Hortense, stuffed with chicken and rice, grilled almonds and wine, reeled heavily onto Zorba's shoulder and sighed. She rubbed herself gently against his bony sides, yawned and sighed afresh.

  Zorba made a sign to me and lowered his voice:

  "She's in the mood, boss," he whispered. "Be a pal, and leave us."

  4

  AT DAYBREAK I opened my eyes and saw Zorba sitting opposite me at the end of his bed with his legs tucked up; he was smoking and absorbed in deep meditation. His líttle round eyes were fixed on the fanlight in front of him, which the first gleam of day tinted milky white. His eyes were swollen and his unusually long, bare, scraggy neck was stretched out like the neck of a bird of prey.

  The previous evening I had retired early, leaving him alone with the old siren.

  "I'm going," I said. "Enjoy yourself, Zorba, and good luck to you!"

  "Good night, boss," Zorba replied. "Let us settle our little affair. Good night, boss. Sleep tight."

  Apparently they did settle their little affair, for in my sleep I seemed to hear muffled cooings, and for a time the neighboring room shook and trembled. Then sleep overcame me again. A long while after midnight, Zorba entered barefoot and stretched himself on his bed, very gently, so as not to wake me.

  In the first light, there he was, gazing into the distance with his lackluster eyes. You could see he was still sunk in a sort of torpor, his temples were not yet freed from sleep. Calmly, fondly, he was letting himself drift on a shady current as thick as honey. The whole universe of earth, water, thoughts and men was slowly drifting towards a distant sea, and Zorba was drifting away with it, unresistingly, unquestioningly, and happy.

  The village began to be roused—there was a confused murmur of cocks, pigs, asses and men. I wanted to leap from my bed and cry: "Heigh! Zorba! We've work to do today!" But I too felt a great happiness in delivering myself up, silently, to the rosy transformation of sunrise. In those magic minutes the whole of life seems as light as dawn. The earth constantly changes shape in the wind, like a soft and billowy cloud.

  I stretched out my arm; I, too, felt like having a smoke. I took my pipe. I looked at it with emotion. It was a big and precious one, "Made in England." It was a present from my friend—the one who had greyish-green eyes and slender fingers. That was abroad, years ago. He had finished his studies and was leaving that evening for Greece. "Give up cigarettes," he said. "You light one, you smoke half of it and throw the rest away. Your love only lasts a minute. It's disgraceful. You'd better take up a pipe. It's like a faithful spouse. When you go home, it'll be there, quietly waiting for you. You'll light it, you'll watch the smoke rising in the air—and you'll think of me!"

  It was noon. We were leaving the Berlin museum, where he had been to have one last look at his favorite painting—Rembrandt's Warrior, with his bronze helmet, emaciated cheeks and his dolorous and strong-willed expression. "If ever in my life I perform an action worthy of a man," he murmured, as he gazed at the implacable and desperate warrior, "it will be to him I shall owe it."


  We were in the museum courtyard, leaning against a pillar. In front of us was a bronze statue of a naked Amazon, riding a wild horse with indescribable grace. A little grey bird, a wagtail, perched for a moment on the Amazon's head, turned towards us, jerking up its tail, uttered two or three times a mocking cry, and flew away.

  I shuddered, looked at my friend and asked:

  "Did you hear that bird? It seemed to say something to us, then it flew away."

  My friend smiled. " 'It's a bird, let it sing; it's a bird let it speak,'" he said, quoting a line from one of our popular ballads.

  How was it that at this moment, at daybreak, on this Cretan coast, such a memory should come into my head, together with that faithful verse, and fill my mind with bitterness?

  I slowly worked some tobacco into my pipe and lit it. Everything in this world has a hidden meaning, I thought. Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics; woe to anyone who begins to decipher them and guess what they mean… When you see them, you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later, too late, that you understand…

  The bronze-helmeted warrior, my friend leaning against the pillar, the wagtail and what it chirped to us, the verse from that melancholy ballad, all this, I thought today, may have a hidden meaning, but what can it be?

  My eyes followed the smoke which curled and uncurled in the dappled light. And my mind mingled with the smoke and slowly vanished in blue wreaths. After a long interval, without having any recourse to logic, I could see with utter certainty the origin, the growth and the disappearance of the world. It was as if I had once more plunged into Buddha, but this time without the delusive words and insolent acrobatic tricks of the mind. This smoke is the essence of his teaching, these vanishing spirals are life coming impatiently to a happy end in blue nirvana…

  I sighed softly. Às if this sigh had brought me back to the present minute, I looked round and saw the miserable wooden hut, and hanging on the wall a little mirror from which the first rays of the sun had just struck sparks. Opposite me, Zorba sat on his mattress, smoking, with his back to me.

  The previous day, with its tragi-comic fortunes, suddenly flashed into my mind. The smell of stale violet perfume—violet eau-de-Cologne, musk and patchouli; a parrot, an almost human being transformed into a parrot and who beat his wings against the iron bars of his cage, calling the name of a former lover; and an old mahone,[8] only survivor of a whole fleet, who recounted ancient naval battles…

  Zorba heard my sigh, shook his head and looked around.

  "We've behaved badly," he murmured. "We've behaved badly, boss. You laughed, so did I, and she saw us. And the way you left, without any fine words, as if she was an old bag of a hundred. What a damn shame! It's not polite, boss. That's not the way for a man to behave, let me tell you. She's a woman, after all, isn't she? A weak, fretful creature. A good job I stayed behind to console her."

  "But what do you mean, Zorba?" I replied. "Do you seriously think all women have nothing else but that in mind?"

  "Yes, boss, they've nothing else in mind. Listen to me, now… I've seen all sorts, and I've done all kinds of things… A woman has nothing else in view. She's a sickly creature, I tell you, and fretful. If you don't tell her you love and want her, she starts crying. Maybe she doesn't want you at all, maybe you disgust her, maybe she says no. That's another story. But all men who see her must desire her. That's what she wants, the poor creature, so you might try and please her!

  "I had a grandmother, she must have been eighty. What a tale that old soul's life would make! Never mind, that's another story, too… Well, she must have been eighty in the shade, and opposite our house lived a younger girl as fresh as a flower… Krystallo she was called. Every Saturday evening, raw young bloods of the village would meet for a drink, and the wine made us lively. We stuck a sprig of basil behind our ears, one of my cousins took his guitar, and we went serenading. What love! What passion! We bellowed like bulls! We all wanted her, and every Saturday we went in a herd for her to make her choice.

  "Well, would you believe it, boss? It's a mystery! Women have a wound which never heals. Every wound heals but that one—don't you take any notice of your books—that one never heals. What, just because a woman's eighty? The wound's still open.

  "So every Saturday the old girl pulled her mattress up to the window, took out her little mirror and combed away at the little bits of thatch she had left, and carefully made a parting. She'd look round slyly, for fear someone saw her. If anyone came near, she'd snuggle back and look as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, pretending she was dozing. But how could she sleep? She was waiting for the serenade. At eighty! You see what a mystery woman is, boss! Just now it makes me want to cry. But at that time I was just harum-scarum, I didn't understand and it made me laugh. One day I got annoyed with her. She was hauling me over the coals because I was running after the girls, so I told her straight out where to get off: 'Why do you rub walnut leaves over your lips every Saturday, and part your hair? I s'pose you think we come to serenade you? It's Krystallo we're after. You're just a stinking old corpse!'

  "Would you believe it, boss! That day was the first time I knew what a woman was. Two tears sprang into my grandma's eyes. She curled up like a dog, and her chin trembled. 'Krystallo!' I shouted, going nearer so as she'd hear better. 'Krystallo!' Young people are cruel beasts, they're inhuman, they don't understand. My grandma raised her skinny arms to heaven. 'Curse you from the bottom of my heart!' she cried. That very day she started to go into a decline. She wasted away and two months later, her days were numbered. Then when she was at her last gasp she saw me. She hissed like a turtle and tried to grab me with her withered fingers. 'It was you who finished me off. May you be damned, Alexis, and suffer all I have!'"

  Zorba smiled.

  "Ah, the old witch's curse has hit home!" he said, stroking his moustache. "I'm in my sixty-fifth year, I think, but even if I live to be a hundred I'll never lay off. I'll still have a little mirror in my pocket, and I'll still be running after the female of the species."

  He smiled once more, threw his cigarette through the fanlight, stretched his arms and said:

  "I've plenty of other faults, but that is the one that'll kill me."

  He leapt from his bed.

  "Enough of all that. Cut the cackle. Today we work!"

  He dressed in a twinkling, put on his shoes and went out.

  With my head bowed, I ruminated on Zorba's words, and suddenly a distant snow-bound town came to my mind. I was at an exhibítion of Rodin's works, and I had stopped to look at an enormous bronze hand, "The Hand of God." This hand was half closed, and in the palm an ecstatic man and woman were embracing and struggling.

  A girl came up and stopped beside me. She also looked and was moved at the disquieting, eternal embrace of man and woman. She was slim, well-dressed; she had a wealth of fair hair, a powerful chin and thin lips. There was something determined and virile about her. I normally hate inviting a conversation, and I do not know what urged me to turn to her and ask:

  "What are you thinking about?"

  "If only we could escape!" she murmured resentfully.

  "And go where? The hand of God is everywhere. There is no salvation. Are you sorry'?"

  "No. Love may be the most intense joy on earth. It may be. But, now I see that bronze hand, I want to escape."

  "You prefer freedom."

  "Yes."

  "But, supposing it's only when we obey that bronze hand we are free? Supposing the word 'God' didn't have that convenient meaning the masses give it?"

  She looked anxiously at me. Her eyes were of a metallic grey, her lips dry and bitter.

  "I don't understand," she said, and moved away.

  She disappeared. Since then I had never thought any more of her. Nevertheless, she must have continued to live deep down in my heart, and today, on this empty coast, she reappeared, pale and plaintive, from the depths of my being.
/>
  Yes, I had behaved badly. Zorba was right. That bronze hand was a good pretext. The first contact had succeeded, the first gentle words had been exchanged, and we might gradually, imperceptibly, have embraced and been united, undisturbed in the hand of God. But I had suddenly darted from earth to heaven, and the woman had been startled and had fled.

  The old cock was crowing in Dame Hortense's yard. The white light of day was now peeping in through the little window. I leapt out of bed.

  The workmen had begun to arrive with tbeir pickaxes, their crowbars and their mattocks. I heard Zorba giving his orders. He had thrown himself into the work straight away. One felt he was a man who knew how to command men, who loved responsibility.

  I put my head out of the fanlight and saw him standing, like a great gawk in the middle of the thirty-odd lean, narrow-waisted, rough and weather-beaten men. His arm was stretched out authoritatively, his words were brief and to the point. Once he caught hold of a youngish fellow by the scruff of the neck because he was muttering and coming forward hesitatingly.

  "Got something to say, have you?" Zorba cried. "Well, say it out aloud! I don't like mumblings. You've got to be in the mood to work. If you're not, get back to the tavern!"

  At that moment Dame Hortense appeared with tousled hair and swollen cheeks. She was not made up, and she was dressed in a full, dirty gown and was shuffling along in a pair of long, down-at-heel slippers. She coughed the raucous cough of old singers, like a donkey's braying. She stopped and looked with pride at Zorba. Her eyes became misty. She coughed again, so that he would notice her, and passed close to him, swaying and wriggling her hips. Her broad sleeve almost brushed him. But he did not even turn round to look at her. He took a piece of barley cake and a handful of olives from a workman and shouted:

  "Now, men, in God's name, make the sign of the cross!" And, striding away, he led the gang in a beeline towards the mountain.

  I shall not describe here the work on the mine. It would need patience to do that, and I have none. Near the sea, we built a hut out of bamboo, osier and petrol-cans. Zorba used to awake at dawn, seize his pick, go to the mine before the men, open a gallery, abandon it, find a gleaming lignite seam and dance for joy. But after a few days he would lose the seam and he would fling himself down on the ground with his legs in the air and, with his feet and hands, make a mocking gesture at the sky.