Freedom or Death Read online

  Even the Pasha of Megalokastro, a hard-bitten elder, started from his sleep, feeling hot and lascivious, and clapped his hands. Suleiman, his Arabian, appeared. “Open the window, Suleiman, or I shall faint. What’s the matter with me? What sort of a wind is this, Suleiman?”

  “It comes from Arabia, Pasha Effendi, and it’s hot. But it means no harm, have no fear. We Cretans call it cucumber wind, because it ripens the cucumbers.”

  “Cucumber wind well I never! Go and call the slave Fatumashe’s to be ready if I need her. And bring me a jug of water from the basin and a fan, to give me some cool air… . This Crete may yet be the death of me!”

  Even the Metropolitan of Megalokastro, a Godfearing octogenarian with a wavy, snowy beard, was all on fire. He threw off the bedclothes, got up and leaned against the window of the Bishop’s Palace, to get some air. Profound stillness! The houses were slumbering in deep darkness. The old lemon tree stood blossoming in the square before the church, and, all around, the world smelled sweet. Above, in the vault of Heaven, numberless lamps were burning before God’s throne. With awe the Metropolitan lost himself in the starry sky. For a moment his heavy stately body hung high up in the night air, surrounded by God’s deep stillness; then he fell back to earth and found himself leaning on the window sill once more. The Metropolitan crossed himself, the warm spring wind was banished, and now the old man felt his whole body cool and light. He went back to his bed to sink sinless into God’s embrace.

  Captain Michales tugged at the sheet and sat up angrily in bed. It must be after midnight. He grabbed at the jug which stood near him, pressed it to his lips and took two or three deep gulps, to wake up, to drive away the shameless dream which had been weighing on him all night. But it clung to him like a woman and would not let him go. “Damn sleep!” he growled, “damnation take it. It opens the door to evil spirits, and in they come.”

  He sprang up, went downstairs barefoot and out into the yard, drew water from the well and plunged his head into the bucket to extinguish the blaze. But the sweet saliva remained in his mouth and the folly upon his eyelids. He went back and sat down again on his bed. He opened the window near it: pitch dark. He listened.

  Megalokastro was sunk in sleep; its breathing could not be heard. A strange, hot wind, reeking of earth and water, sighed, and the leaves of the trellised vine by the stable rustled.

  Captain Michales leaned with his back against the wall and began to smoke. He did not mean to yield to sleep again. It was a Turkish creature, a mad one, and he did not trust it. He smoked and gazed up at the icon of the Archangel Michael, protector of his race: Heaven’s fury: with his quiver on his back. On the right of the picture, hanging hi a row, shone the silver pistols he had inherited from his father; on its left, the crown of honor from his wedding, made of waxen lemon blossoms. From the next room he heard his wife Katerina sigh briefly. Above, in the rafters, a mouse was nibbling, and all of a sudden the cat rushed soundlessly and stealthily up the stairs. Then profound stillness.

  Captain Michales smoked. Neither the agitation nor the shame had fled from his brain. Breathing heavily, with his gaze fixed on the window, he waited for day to come.

  At the other end of Megalokastro, near New Gate, Barba(*Uncle) Jannis was going home bathed in sweat, with his sleeves rolled up and a flaring oil lamp in his hand. He ,was a miserable little old man with a bald head, gray, round, bright little eyes, and a long stork’s neck seamed with wrinkles and cavities. He stumbled along the narrow alleys and cursed his fate. People would not even allow him the one thing left to him after the death of his wife: his sleep. From early morning he toiled, bringing drink to the inhabitants of Megalokastro in winter the sweet barley water, salepi, to warm them; in summer sherbet to cool them. Did he ever take a nap? One of the neighbor women, or a relative, would be taken with child: “Quick, my poor Barba Jannis, deliver her!” He had learned midwifery from his regretted father, who had been a blacksmith and had delivered people’s mares and he-asses. Barba Jannis had transferred his father’s art from the mares and she-asses to women. Yesterday evening he had delivered poor Pelagia, his niece. It had not been easy. Three hours the pangs had lasted, but he had brought the child forth a lusty, pitch-black boy.

  And now, talking to himself as he walked along, he caught the sound of a horse’s hoofs behind him but not a horse like any we know, which eat barley, neigh and make dung. Barba Jannis recognized it by its hoof beats, which were soft, as though muffled in cotton, and by the holy scent of incense which pervaded the air… . Barba Jannis understood. This was not the first time. He pressed close to the wall, crossed himself and waited. The light, onward-sweeping step drew near, the fragrance grew stronger.

  “Remember me, O Lord,” he muttered, “Saint Menas, my saint, good evening.”

  He opened his eyes joyfully. In the roadway there appeared, glittering out of the darkness, on a gold-harnessed bay and in a silver coat of mail, with his red lance at rest upon his shoulder, the gray-haired hero and protector of Megalokastro, Saint Menas. This evening as usual, he was riding on his rounds. Always at midnight, when the town lay lost in sleep, Saint Menas stepped silently out of his icon-shrine and struck out over the walls and through the Greek quarter. Where anyone had left a door open, he closed it. Where a light showed in a window and a Christian lay sick, he paused and prayed God for a cure. Men’s eyes had not the strength to recognize him. Only the dogs wagged their tails. Yet there were two men hi the town who did see him: Barba Jannis and Horsedung Efendina, the hodza who was weak in the head. As soon as Saint Menas had finished his round in the gray of dawn, he went back into his icon-shrine, and no one would have suspected what secret things had happened in the night if Murzuflos the lamplighter had not noticed, as he cleaned the church in the morning, sweat on Saint Menas’ horse.

  Barba Jannis watched the saint till he was out of sight in the darkness, and crossed himself. “Tonight I’ve seen him again. Great is his grace, my affairs will go well,” he murmured, and pulled out of his jacket a round grape tart, which he had been given as payment for his trouble over Pelagia. He began to eat it contentedly. Then he reached his hovel and put out the lantern.

  Captain Michales smoked and paced up and down. His mind droned like a beetle and flew over all that he had seen and suffered, loved and abhorred in his life his village, his father, his house, human beings, Turks and Christians. He gathered together the whole of Crete, insurrection to insurrection. But nowhere would his thoughts pause; they kept running on and sliding back to a shameless red mouth and would not leave it.

  Captain Michales wandered up and down in agitation and cast wild glances at the Archangel Michael, as though he were asking him to abandon his inactive existence in the picture-shrine and restore order. Then he turned around and glared through the window at the sky, now not so utterly dark. “It’s getting light now,” he called out. “It’s getting light, and I’ll be able to see where I’m going.”

  He strode to the yard, plunged his head again into the bucket and calmed down a little. Then he crouched on the threshold and waited.

  Like a bull, Captain Michales fought with himself; but Nuri Bey, too, had spent the whole night rushing up and down in the men’s quarters, going out into the garden to get some air, coming in again, smoking one cigarette after j another, drinking one raki after another and bellowing. He raised his eyes to the wooden lattice. The Circassian had bolted it and would not let him come near her.

  “I don’t want you!” she shouted at him through the keyhole. “You’ve disgraced yourself, you’re no use to me.”

  She too had not been able to shut her eyes. Half; naked, she went to the window and ardently stretched out! her arms toward the Greek quarter. She saw in the dark. The eyebrows, beard and strong hands of Captain Michales, and whinnied like a mare.

  “The woman’s right, she’s right,” murmured Nuri Bey, and began to weep. “I shall go to the dogs, like Efendina. The giaour will call me too, whenever he gives a feast, to play the kara
gios for him.”

  In the morning the Moor found his master in a heap on the threshold, dead drunk. His mustache, chest and jacket were covered with vomit, raki and cigarette ash.

  At the moment when Nuri Bey was thinking of him, Efendina was asleep on his back and smiling happily. He had received the news late in the evening. There was to be another feast, eight days long! He would eat pig’s flesh and sausage they would go down like butter. He would get wine as well, and forget his misery for eight days yes, and to hell with it! To hell, too, with holiness! He shut his eyes, stroked his small, fair beard and fell asleep. And behold, just when Nuri Bey thought of him, Efendina had a dream: The door opened, and a pig came in, well grown, well nourished, with a fez on its head like a Turk, and with a knife slung around its neck like a talisman. As soon as Efendina looked at it the pig stood up on its hind legs and greeted him Turkish fashion. Then it took the knife and stuck it into its own thick neck. The pig rolled to the ground, and Efendina bent over it; it was freshly roasted, wrapped in lemon leaves, and smelled lovely. Efendina gave a shout of joy and woke up with his mouth full of saliva.

  While below on earth the poor human beings were catching fire and seeking to put it out in torments and embraces, the vault of Heaven was turning, the stars going their way, and suddenly behind the peaks of Lasithi the Morning Star sprang forth and clanged in the wind. The thickly feathered cock in Captain Michales’ yard opened his round eyes, took in what was happening in the sky, beat with his wings, puffed out his chest and began to crow. Up above, in the rich farmer Krasojorgis’ yard, the lewd Cyprian ass sniffed the air, smelled the dainty, dew-fresh grass, and the Cretan she-ass raised her tail bolt upright and began to bray.

  Megalokastro awoke. From one end of the street to the other, from Idomeneas’ well to Tulupanas’ bakery, a stretching and a stirring began afresh in Captain Michales’ quarter. First of all, the wife of Mastrapas untied her husband, that holy man, from the bedposts, to which she tied him fast every evening out of jealousy, to prevent him from going secretly downstairs and finding the fat maid Anesina, with her cow breasts, in the kitchen below. She bound him fast every evening and only loosened the bands a little if he woke her up to make water. But even then the cord remained around his ankles, and his wife held him fast lest the prisoner should contrive to slip away.

  Captain Polyxigis had been back some time from his nocturnal adventure, very tired and reeking of musk. Mr. Demetros yawned by the side of his wife Penelope, who was again in a bad mood. She had thrown the bedclothes aside and was muttering: “Why am I twenty-five? Sometimes my body catches fire, and sometimes the fire goes out and makes me feel like a tortoise.” At that moment, at gray of dawn, her body had caught fire. She sat up fiercely, cast a sidelong glance of hate at the yawning Demetros and went out.

  ‘The sky became pale, the songbirds awakened under the eaves, and up above, in Krasojorgis’ house, the blackbird was singing in its cage.

  “Krasojorgis’ wife is lucky,” muttered Penelope, and sighed. “Krasojorgis is a rich farmer, and he’s still got his strength and vigor. And he doesn’t disappoint his wife.”

  She listened. A rattling and grunting came from the house farther up. Fat Krasojorgis was lying on his back and snoring. His mustache reeked of wine and onions; his breath came heavy as from a cellar. By him his young wife Katinitsa was still asleep Barba Jannis’ daughter, a merry, well-fed, drink-loving creature. She was smiling and cooing, for she was dreaming that she was engaged and had gone for a walk in a walled garden, holding her young man by the hand. He put his arm around her shoulders, and it was not Krasojorgis, the fat fellow, but a slim, spruce palikar with a fine waxed mustache, long pistols in his belt; his breath smelled of cinnamon. He was the image of that picture which all visitors to Captain Michales’ house admired. Written under it was the name of Athanasios Diakos, a well known hero of the fight for freedom… . Well, he put his arm round her shoulders; sleep lay over her like a tendril heavy with dark clusters, and she walked along in bliss, smiling and cooing like a dove.

  But as the devil would have it, Krasojorgis heard her in his sleep, gave a start and opened his eyes. “Hey, wife!” he called out. “What’s all this simpering and cooing early in the morning? Is it a bit of gingerbread you’re munching? Give me some of it!”

  But she turned her back on him angrily. “Don’t disturb me, leave me alone!” she said, “I’m sleepy!” And she closed her eyes and tried to find her young dream man again.

  From Tulupanas’ bakery rose cloud on cloud of the first thick, pale-blue smoke. The old baker, always gloomy and taciturn, was awake and all alone in his bake house, beginning his work in order to forget his worries. But how could he forget? He had a dear and only son, a lad of twenty, fair haired and handsome, whom he had always clothed and looked after devotedly. Suddenly, three years ago, the boy had begun to have swellings, his face had become covered with boils, his finger tips had rotted and his nails fallen off. And now his lips were beginning to fester. Father and mother were unwilling to take him to Meskinia, to the lepers’ place. How could they part from their son, since they had no other? They kept him shut up in his room, that no man’s eyes might see him. How then could old Tulupanas sleep happily now, and why should he open his mouth to speak? He bent down to the kneading, pushed the dough into the oven, pulled out the baked bread, made his round of the streets selling ring-loaves and spinach-pas-muttered Captain Michales, turning to the east and crossing himself.

  Megalokastro had filled itself with sun. First the minarets seized upon it, then the light blue cupola of Saint Menas’ and the roofs of the houses. Soon it sank lower and hung there in the damp alleys. The young girls opened their windows to it, and in it came, and the old gray women went into the yards to warm themselves. They crossed themselves and praised the Lord that March, that month accursed of God, which plagues the aged with sudden cold, was over. Now their limbs would sun themselves. Welcome April and Saint George.

  Through all the fortress gates the Cretan donkeys streamed in; nimble and always gay, they raised their tails and brayed at the inhabitants to announce the advent of spring.

  Penelope went back into her yard; she yawned so wide that her jawbones creaked. Middle-aged, with breasts and haunches of double girth, she ate well and had a good digestion. She washed and scrubbed her husband Mr. Demetros, fed and groomed him like a horse, and every evening tried hard to animate him. She had no children, and loved cats, canaries and spring meadows. This morning she had grange-pins and needles in her back, and, if she had had a tail like an animal, she would have raised it high and brayed, to announce the spring to Katerina, to the wives of Krasojorgis and Mastrapas, to the doctor’s wife and all the neighbors. Why were they still lying in bed? They ought to get up and let the sun touch them to make them all bray together and roll in the fields! Spring has come! Today her four walls could not contain her. She cooked quickly and sent the little maid to knock at the door, opposite, of Katerina the Captain’s wife, and say: Greetings from my mistress Penelope, Demetros’ wife, and if you would like, she says, we’re taking our meal and going out to the fields to eat it there. Spring has come, she says.

  But how could the Captain’s wife leave her house, since it must be cleaned to let the five boon companions tramp in, early next morning? She was preparing hens for the feast: one to be boiled, another stuffed with sweet corn, the third roasted on the spit.

  “We can’t. Tell your mistress we can’t today, and please will she excuse us. But if she would like to come here this afternoon with her sewing, the neighbors are coming too, and so is Ali Aga, to amuse us. Captain Michales will be absent all day today. She need have no fear.”

  Penelope frowned and sent the little maid to the other neighbors: to Mastrapas’ wife, to Krasojorgis’ wife, to Polyxigis’ sister. But the first said she was expecting Manoles the pope, who was to exorcise the house; the second said she had a headache and giddiness; and Polyxigis’ sister was doing the baking early for supper. Bes
ides, her feet had swollen and she could not move.

  “Perish the lot of you! Addled idiots!” growled Penelope, enraged. “Don’t you ever open your peepholes to look out? Or would that make you feel naked? Come, Marulio, go to the doctor’s wife, Massella she will understand, even if she is French, what spring is. She’ll come!” Marcelle was her name, but Penelope called her Massella. Penelope made fun of her because she talked broken Greek and had many big-town airs. According to the Frenchwoman, “Parisia” was bigger than Megalokastro, and a big river flowed between its streets; also, the women there went to the coffeehouses, talked boldly with the men and showed their feet up to the ankles. These were fairy tales, certainly, but the heretical Frenchwoman had a pretty way of telling them, and you could see she believed them herself… . I’ve often noticed her eyes go dim, she thought. And what she has to put up with from that impudent husband of hers, with his airs and graces for shame! To hell with him! He has no shame, carrying on with a girl from Arkalochori … the poor woman must come out into the country. We’ll go as far as Saint Irene of the Four Springs. That’ll wear her out. But the little maid came back with downcast face. “She can’t, she says, she can’t. She coughed all night and had no sleep another day. And will you excuse her?”

  Penelope swore. In her mind she ran through the whole neighborhood. Should she God forbid! invite Kolyvas’ wife? Her husband’s a gravedigger, and she herself a hypochondriac and sees ghosts. All the dead flutter past her pillow. Serves her right! Why does her husband strip them of their clothes and dress his wife and his own bag of bones in them? And the dead are left naked in the damp of the earth and are angry, and quite right too. No, she wouldn’t have Kolyvas’ wife. … Should she send again to Archondula, that bitter nut, to ask her to be so kind as to go out with Penelope the grocer’s wife? Archondula’s father, so they said, had been a dragoman in Constantinople and had played cards with the patriarch; now that he was dead, she received a bag of gold pounds from the patriarchate every year, and ate caviar by the spoonful! No, the food of ordinary people was not good enough for her! The visits of the Metropolitan and the pasha were not good enough for her! When she was still young, she found that one man reeked and another stank. The conceited creature! Let her now stew in her own juice, left sitting there on the trunk with her trousseau. Serves her right! Serves her brother right too, the deaf mute. Sins of the fathers… . Once a Christian had been brought to Constantinople to be hanged, because he was supposed to have killed a Turk. The dragoman curses on his bones! knew the truth: the murderer was not the Christian but a bey. But would anything make that blackguard of a dragoman open his mouth to speak? He was afraid and remained dumb. So his only son too became dumb. No, you’re not going out with Miss Archondula, no, not even if she were willing.