Freedom or Death Read online

  Her mind swept away from the snob’s grand house and wandered further: should I ask Vangelio? But she won’t come either, because she’s in such a hurry. She’s getting her trousseau ready and is set on marrying Tityros, the schoolmaster, at Easter… . Why the devil has the unfortunate girl chosen him? That yellow head, that half-helping with glasses? Did I hear it said she loves him? But there’s a curse on her, poor thing! Her brother, the pretty ne’er-do-well with the gold watch, has frittered all her money away on finery and debauchery.

  After long searching up and down, Penelope came to a decision. She climbed into the trough, cut a bunch of vine leaves from the trellis, went into the kitchen, wrapped the food in the leaves, filled a basket with bread, olives, a couple of oranges, a small bottle of wine, a spirit-lamp, coffee, sugar, a knife and fork and a cloth, and came out into the yard.

  “Come with me, Marulio,” she said to her little servant girl.

  She shut the street door and trotted down to the harbor. Thick-set and broad-shouldered, she suggested, with her rocking gait, certain fat-tailed sheep recently imported into Crete from Asia Minor. The poor woman was embarrassed, for she could feel how her bottom wagged. But what could she do about it? Even those dumplings are God’s work, she said to herself, and felt consoled. Luckily for me my legs aren’t swollen like Miss Chrysanthe’s, Polyxigis’ sister. I can still get about, God be thanked, and I order that pig of mine about. I manage him; he doesn’t manage me. I’m a match for ten girls, ten lads can’t put me down, I’m rightly called the Strong Woman.

  After much pitching and tossing she crossed Broad Street. It was swarming with porters, artisans, farmers. What a shouting and squabbling! What great coarse asses’ throats these Kastrians have, thought Penelope, pursing her lips; she herself was from Rethymno and proud of it. Kanea for weapons, Rethymno for books, Megalokastro for mugs. Scarcely were the Kastrians done with their work in the evening when they were all lolling in the taverns and swilling away, chewing dried fish and gobbets off the spit, and reeking of wine, ouzo and meat How unlike the Rethymniots with their slow, dignified gait, deep bows and lordly ceremony! Only her Demetros was different from all the rest of Megalokastro; but he, bless him, was half a corpse! Why couldn’t she bring him to life at night? All my efforts in vain, she thought. Yes, if he were only from Rethymno. …

  She sighed. She walked on until she was near the harbor. He will be sitting there as usual, flawing his fly whisk, she thought. Yes, he can do that all right.

  But Demetros had got tired of flapping his fly whisk some time ago and was now immersed in a large volume in which he recorded in two kinds of ink. Red for the meat, blue for the rest the food he consumed each day. He was deep in study, reading the dishes and savoring them till his mouth filled with spittle. He had got as far as the last few days, and was spelling them out slowly, with relish, as though chewing. “The Year 1889, March 20: Fresh broad beans with artichokes and green onions; lots of oil; well blended. March 21: Baked cucumbers with garlic; burned by that wretched Tulupanas.”

  A little girl came into the entrance of the shop. “Mr. Demetros, sir, Christofakas’ wife has sent me. You’re to give me six ounces of Chios mastic for cooking.”

  “I see what you want, my child, I see. But it’s there, high up!” And he drawled the words out as long as he could, to show that the mastic was somewhere on the peak of the world.

  ‘The girl departed, and Mr. Demetros again plunged into his studies. “March 25, the Annunciation: Boiled cod with lemon; cod with parsley; roast cod with garlic; cucumber salad. Very tasty.”

  But now he had enough of his studies too. He took up the fly whisk again and sighed. “I, the son of the famous Captain Leanbottom, what have I come to?” he muttered, and slapped his good-natured face with his open hand. “My grandfather owned a warship and set the Turkish frigates on fire. My father owned a gun and killed Turks. And I’ve got a fly whisk and kill flies. Curse this face of mine!” And as his warrior father came into his mind, the shop became too small for him. He stretched out his arms and touched the walls to his right and left. Like Samson he wanted to burst the walls, to make the world wide, so

  1 hat he, Mr. Demetros Leanbottom, should not feel confined.

  Just at the moment he was vowing to burst the walls asunder, the shop darkened. On the threshold towered Penelope, tall and round and fat and out of breath. As Mr. Demetros saw her, his face grew troubled. What the devil does she want from me now? he asked himself. Isn’t the night enough? Where does she get the energy, the shameless woman? Has someone put petroleum in her buttocks? Ah! the respectable women of Rethymno!

  “Welcome!” he said aloud, and hastily opened the book.

  “Up you get, Demetros,” his wife called. “Up you get! We’re going out into the country together! Don’t molder away; give those bones of yours a chance to warm up, bless you! Here you are, stuck in a swamp like a frog. Pull yourself together! I’ve brought our meal with me your favorite dish.”

  She bent down and whispered into his ear: “Eggplant wrapped hi vine leaves, with lots of pepper… . You’ll see how good they taste, out hi the country!”

  Mr. Dimtros shuddered. “I’m not coming!” he shouted, “I’m not coming!” and clung to his bench.

  “Come, Demetros, poppet, come! To please you, I promise not to scold you.”

  But he flapped hard with the fly whisk, as if Penelope were a fly, a bluebottle that he wanted to chase out of the shop.

  “I’m not coming!” he shouted again, “I’ve got lots of work to do today, can’t you see? I’m doing accounts. What I owe, what I’m owed, so as to see how we stand. Go alone, there’s an angel.”

  “Let’s be off, Marulio,” said Penelope, taking her little maid by the scruff of the neck. “I’ll take you as my neighbor and husband! Let’s be off, we’ll have our meal together out in the sun.” And she turned her towering back on Mr. Demetros and went.

  “Curse my fate,” she muttered, striding along. “I ought to have taken a palikar for husband, a guzzler and swillerand wencher who’d have begotten a dozen children on me ere I was tamed. And I should have lived in Rethymno, where the best people live, and not here with the Kastrians the asses!”

  She muttered to herself and moved on, raging. She was already hungry. She saw the sun getting higher, and her nostrils quivered she could smell the fresh grass. She was still holding the diminutive Marulio by the scruff and powerfully pulling her along. The girl dragged, gasping, with the loaded basket. She kept losing her trodden-down slippers; then she took them off and laid them on top of the vegetables. After that she trotted on, barefoot, beside her mistress.

  Near Saint Menas’ church Penelope stopped. She crossed herself. “Dear Saint Menas,” she murmured, “you know what I want help me!”

  Shrieks and laughter rang out. The alley filled with children. The bell had rung, and they were rushing to school. Penelope’s heart leaped. She remained where she was, admiring the children. “Ah!” she said, “if only the lot were mine! And not ah by Demetros, God forgive me!”

  In an instant her eyes went dim, and before her mind there passed the young men she had seen in the streets and-villages and in dreams. God forgive me, she said to herself, but I think Barba Jannis’ wife, with her thousands of men, is right. How many men has she had children by! God alone knows and by whom she had my neighbor Katinitsa, Krasojorgis’ wife! Barba Jannis did try to be hard of hearing, but a flea got into his ear all the same. He saw his horns, groped for them and felt them. But what was he to do? Once only, when he was ill, he called his wife. “Ah, wife,” he said, “in God’s name, in Whom you believe, tell me the truth. Are all the children we’ve got mine?” But his wife said nothing. “Tell me the truth, wife. You can see I’m dying. What are you afraid of?” “And suppose you don’t die?” the creature answered. “Suppose you don’t die?” …

  Penelope laughed as she remembered, and drew to one side to let the schoolchildren by. She looked at little Thrasos, the son o
f her neighbor, the captain’s wife.

  “Thrasaki, Thrasaki!” she called, and looked in the basket for an Orange to give him.

  But how could Thrasaki hear her? He had his arms round the shoulders of his two friends; on his right, Manolios, Mastrapas” son, on his left, Andrikos, Krasojorgis’ son. They were running, chattering, laughing, as they went over, again and again, how they had strewed small shot about the threshold of the school door at the moment when Tityros had turned his back and was preparing to teach them the song they were to sing on next Sunday’s outing: “Spring has come, the flowers are here again …” They had all begun shouting, and Tityros too had joined in the fun: he raised his birch and said, “Children, let’s go out into the yard, all of us, and sing out there. Then, the day after tomorrow, when we’re outside the Three Vaults, we shan’t disgrace ourselves. Forward!”

  He had led the way, with his head in the air, but as he set foot stoutly on the threshold he slid and fell to the ground like a jar. His glasses were smashed to bits.

  “Didn’t he break any bones too?” asked Andrikos, worried lest they should be whole.

  But Thrasaki reassured him. “He did, I tell you, he did. Didn’t you hear the crack? That was his bones.”

  “And did you hear the way he yelled ‘Oh!’?” said Manolios, rubbing his hands” contentedly. “He must have broken his hip he couldn’t get up. He yelled ‘oh! oh!’ and groped for his glasses.”

  “That means we’re rid of the outing and can do what we planned. Agreed?”

  “Agreed!” cried his two companions.

  A dog came by. They picked up stones and chased him away.

  By the teke, next door to Saint Menas’, they heard shrieking and brawling. They stopped. “Hamide Mula is beating Efendina,” said Thrasaki. “Let’s wait. Might see some fun.” They stood on tiptoe, to see through the grille in the wall. The big weed-grown yard stretched before them, and in the middle was the Saint’s tomb, decked with strips of colored fabric. Near the tomb the old barefoot mother, her hair coming down and her nose standing out like a spear-point, was holding her son by the neck with one hand and a forked stick in the other. “Have you no fear of God?” she screamed. “You’d go again to the house of those Greeks, where they stuff you with swine’s flesh and make you drunk with wine and defile you! I’ll lock you in, you damned blockhead, I’ll beat you senseless. You shan’t go!”

  Efendina made a movement to escape from his mother’s claws. He shrieked as though she were trying to murder him.

  “You shan’t go,” she screamed, and shook him. “You shan’t go! Have you forgotten the shame you bring on yourself every time you do? When you’re sober again, you’re sorry and you howl. Then you tear off your cap, and your scab shows. And you smear it with horse dung and run out into the streets and bray like an ass… . And the Greeks pelt you with lemon peel and give .you a woman’s name. They call you Efendina, Efendina Horsedung! Aren’t you ashamed, in front of this saint, your grandfather?” So she abused him shrilly and pointed at the tomb with its bright-colored shreds.

  “Day and night I think of him!” shouted Efendina, raising his hands high. “I swear it, day and night I think of him!”

  “Then why do you defile yourself?” “Don’t you want me to become a saint? A saint, like my grandfather? How the devil do you expect me to become a saint if I don’t sin? If I don’t fall into sin, shall I repent? shall I weep? cry to God? show my scab to men? No! How then can I become a saint?”

  Hamide’ Mula stood with open mouth. Now she stared at her son, now at the tomb, and fell silent. Perhaps her idiot of a son was right. Perhaps, too, it was true, what she had heard about the old man, the saint, Efendina’s grandfather. He had spent his whole life getting ripe for the halter and the stake, and only when he shriveled up and could take no more wine, meat and women had he fallen into saintliness. He had climbed up the minaret of Aja Katerina and would neither come down nor eat and drink. He wept, struck himself and cried to God. He bellowed for seven days and nights, and then he gave a mighty cry, so that the hair of the people of Megalokastro stood on end and the ravens flew up into the sky. God had pity on him and sent him food to prevent him from dying. … Was that perhaps her son’s way, too, to become a saint?

  Hamid6s Mula felt bewildered. She did not know whether to beat her darling again or to squat down in the corner of their yard and sun herself, for she was shivering. She laid down the forked stick near the tomb and withdrew her nails from Efendina’s neck. She raised her fist and shook it at him.

  “There! Devil take you, do as you wish! Eat, drink, dance about and then rub horse dung over your scab!”

  So saying, she flung herself, full of anxiety, back into the sunshine in the corner of the yard.

  “A pity,” said Andrikos, “she hasn’t sliced him up.”

  “Just wait, my father will see to that tomorrow,” said Thrasaki. He gave his friend a nudge. “Come,” he said, “tomorrow at sundown the thing’s going to be done. I’m inviting you. Bring your catapults too. I’m bringing a rope.”

  “I’ll bring a stick,” said Andrikos.

  “I’ll bring a stake,” said Manolios.

  “We’re letting Nikolas, Furogatos’ son, come in as well. He’s got strong hands.”

  “But what happens if her father sees us?” asked Manolios, and stood still.

  “Pray … what’s it matter if he does see us,” said Thrasaki contemptuously. “Is he able to beat anyone? He’s not a Cretan, he’s from Syra.”

  “But shall we be able to hold her up?” said Andrikos. “She weighs a ton. Suppose she shrieks?”

  Thrasaki frowned. “Listen, Andrikos,” he said, “these affairs need a stout heart. Haven’t you got one? If not, get out, and I’ll find someone else.”

  “Me?” said Andrikos, injured. “My heart’s like a mountain.”

  “We shall see tomorrow,” said Thrasaki, and ran faster. They were nearing the school now. “Be quiet now,” ordered Thrasaki. “Don’t let a word out, or it’ll be the worse for you! Tomorrow my father will be drunk, and I’m free. And you sneak out. Say it’s for the evening service. Then your mother’ll give you a copper to light a candle. We’ll buy roast peas with it.”

  “And take them home to her,” suggested Manolios.

  “Idiot, why should we take them home to her?” shouted Thrasaki. “We eat them.”

  Meanwhile Captain Michales was riding past Cruel Mountain. His headband was down to his eyebrows. To his left foamed the sea, to his right was rock, iron-bearing rock, the wild, bare mountain. An accursed mountain. Passing it, a Christian makes the sign of the cross and abuses Turkey. For in whatever hole, whatever cranny of it you search, you find the bones of slaughtered Christians.

  Captain Michales crossed himself. Among those cliffs, ten years ago, his brother Christofes had been killed with both his sons. For many days afterward people had followed the ravens, and at last had found, in a gully, the three corpses, piled on one another. Their tongues were missing. As they had gaily ridden by in the evening, they had been singing the Moscow Song. It was the day of Thrasaki’s christening, and the brothers and nephews were on their way home, drunk and pleased with life, They waved at the sea’s horizon and called on the , Muscovites to come. The Turks had lain in wait for them; they fell on them from an ambush, and cut out their tongues.

  “Forsaken Crete!” Captain Michales muttered, and spurred his mare. “For how many generations have you cried out, unlucky land, and who has heard you? Even God needs a threat for His miracles. The mighty ones of the earth want a good threatening. Grasp your gun once more, you fool: that will be your Muscovite. There is no other!”

  He sighed and rode slowly away from the sea into the plain, and from the plain into the mountains. His nostrils dilated; the Cretan precipices were fragrant with thyme and sage.

  “How beautiful Crete is,” he murmured, “how beautiful! Ah! if only I were an eagle, to admire the whole of Crete from an airy height!”

&
nbsp; And truly an eagle would see beauties to admire in Crete the way her close-knit body rose and poised, sun-browned; the way her coats gleamed, now with white sand, now with blood-red, sheer promontories. He must needs rejoice over the villages, the big farms, the monasteries and the little churches glittering against the iron-dark rock or planted deep in the soil. And sorrow over her three tormented, Turk-oppressed towns with the Venetian walls and their Turkified churches: Kanea, Rethymno and Megalokastro God too, higher than the eagle, must have the same view if He had not forgotten Crete, generations and generations ago, and delivered her, soul and all, into the hands of the Turks.

  No, without the soul. For the Cretans resisted, boiled with rage and refused to place the seal under God’s seal. It was Injustice! They raised the heads to Heaven and shouted “Injustice!” and bestirred themselves like good Christians to put right this intolerable divine injustice. God too is a fighter, they reflected. He must be waging war somewhere else, on some other star, against other Turks. We will call Him till He hears us.