He turned to the Arab. “What about it, Suleiman?” and winked at him.
“Act as if you’d never seen her, Pasha Effendi. This is Crete. Here we shall have trouble. Don’t sigh. Shall I fetch the Armenian girl?”
The Armenian girl, Marusia, was famous in Crete. She had even been celebrated in a song. Her husband was an uncouth, broad-boned Armenian, whose shop was situated in the main square. There he stood all day, bent over the deep stone mortar, and pounded the coffee, whose smell spread all around. From the constant pounding his arm had become as thick as a thigh, so that with the heavy pestle he could break through a wall. His wife, a small Armenian witch, looked from behind as if she consisted merely of two half-spheres, which wagged as she went. Late in the evening the youths would slip out to her hut near the Pervola. It was as though they caught her scent, as sensual as a beast’s. She would stand on the doorstep, quietly, her eyes almost closed, with her bodice half undone, her cheeks thickly powdered and her delicate little mustache damp with sweat. And late at night, when her husband was asleep, she would open her own shop and sell love by weight, while in the next room the Armenian snored. She left the bedroom door open on purpose, for it enchanted her, at the moment when strangers Turks, Christians, Armenians, Jews were embracing her, to feel her husband close by and to shudder with fear.
Every time the pasha was depressed, every time the vizier reprimanded him, the Arab brought him this Armenian woman, and the bad mood passed.
“Wouldn’t you like me to fetch the Armenian woman?” Suleiman asked again.
‘Tellow, I don’t want any women,” roared the pasha, and spat with disgust. “The hypocrites, they are as bad as priests; they make me sick. For sixteen seventeen years I’ve done nothing else. Now I’m sighing because I’ve grown old and Turkey’s grown old. We’re both of us going to the devil… . What’s the name of that one, anyhow?”
“Garufalia.”
“May her dead body rot! Tell Barba Jannis the salepi vendor to come to me in the konak this evening and amuse me. My heart is very heavy, my dear Suleiman. Efendina’s to come too.”
He knocked out his pipe against a stone. “She loves me, she loves me not,” he murmured softly, that the Arab might not overhear. “Allah make me a liar, but I believe Turkey too has reached the stage of saying ‘she loves me not’… .Fill my pipe, light it, and don’t speak to me!” he said to the Arab.
A horseman came by: fierce, with a black beard, his forehead hidden by a headband. He struck his mare with a whip, galloped past like a flash and disappeared through the Hospital Gate into the fields.
“Who was that giaour, Arab?” asked the pasha with surprise. “He often plays the hero, it seems to me. Where have we seen him before?”
Fascinated, the Arab stared after the horseman, who was now circling the fortifications.
“Where do you keep your wits, blockhead?” asked the pasha, flourishing his pipe. “Didn’t you hear my question?”
“Who was it, Pasha Effendi? Don’t you remember summoning him to the konak last year and dressing him down for having made a fool of Nuri Bey? He never opened his mouth to apologize, and as he went he caught hold of the stair rail and nearly wrenched it out.”
“Captain Michales!” said the pasha. He fell into thoughtful silence for a moment. Then he went on: “Listen, Suleiman. One day I shall stand you up by the Three Vaults in front of all the people, Turks and Greeks, and et you fight with him and strike him down. Then we’ll be rid of him… . Are you listening?”
The Arab looked out toward the sea. The whites of his eyes were yellow, with a network of red arteries. He did not answer.
The pasha had made a sign. The trumpets stopped. He got up to go and turned once more to his groom: “If you’re afraid of the giaour, Arab, then we’re lost. You mark my words!”
He had said no more. But for three days now his mind had dwelt on the woman in the red skirt and on the chicken heart of Turkey. And today Monday morning he had waked up full of agitation. He had had a bad dream. In the middle of the market place two raging beasts were righting: Captain Michales and Suleiman the Arab. Both were naked and anointed with grease. Each had in his hand nothing but an ax. The whole of Megalokastro was gathered around them: on the sunny side the Christians, on the other, hi shadow, the Turks. They were standing and looking on. No one spoke; all watched with pale faces and open mouths. He himself was squatting under a red canopy. His heart was shuddering like a reed. Captain Michales wins, Turkey falls. But if Suleiman the Arab wins, Christendom falls.
The two fought and roared. The earth trembled under their tread and the hollows hi the ground rilled with blood. The sun went down. Turks and Christians were lost in the darkness, and now the pasha could only make out the two wild beasts as they roared and staggered and rose again, with the strips of flesh hewn by the axes hanging from their bodies. Suddenly the pasha despaired.“Al-lah Allah,” he murmured, “it’s only a dream. I’m going to give a cry, to wake up and not see the end.”
He cried out and woke up. And now he sat, depressed and sunk in thought, on his wide bed with its horsehair stuffing. He clapped his hands, and Suleiman appeared. “Go and fetch Captain Michales!” he said. He did not know what he wanted with him. But he must come! Perhaps some insolent word will escape him, he thought, so that I shall get angry and make up my mind! He’s not to indulge in any insolence in my realm. I am the pasha! And he goes riding out on his mare when I’m listening to the soldiers’ music!
“Captain Michales?” asked the Arab, scratching his head. “But I hear, Pasha Effendi, that he’s gone down into his cellar with his idiotic drinking companions and there he’s drinking. …”
“And suppose he is drinking? Have him get sober and come here!”
The Arab still hesitated. He lowered his voice: “Pasha Effendi, do you want to drown Crete hi blood? Have you had orders from Constantinople?”
The pasha put both hands to his bald head. He felt giddy. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Well, suppose he says to me: ‘I won’t come.’ What do you propose to do with him then? Are you going to send soldiers after him, and have him give them a beating? He’s no man, especially when he’s drinking hes like an earthquake. When he was drunk last year, didn’t he seize hold of the Harbor Gate, to pull it down? … And if, after all, you arrange things so cleverly that he gets killed, then the whole of Crete catches fire! Leave him alone and let him go to the devil, Pasha Effendi.”
“Let him go to the devil because he’s a palikar, and let her go to the devil because she’s a respectable woman yes, what sort of pasha am I?”
He pondered this way and that: If the wretched island catches fire again and fresh soldiers come from Anatolia, with guns and gallows and fresh pashas, the Franks will again mix themselves up in it curse them too! And it won’t do me any good I shall simply have more trouble.
“Quick, bring me a pot of cream and sugar, and fill me my pipe, you Arab scoundrel,” he said at last, tugging angrily at his mustache.
“And Captain Michales?”
“May the devil take him!”
While the pasha was talking of him, Captain Michales was observing the coming of daylight through the small window of the cellar. His headband had fallen on his shoulders. His forehead gleamed like bronze in the light, and the hair of his head and beard glittered. His round, deep black eyes were motionless, gazing at the window. All night he had not slept, but had watched, listened and drunk. Each time his heart had tried to calm itself, he had given a fierce, hot cry that made it contract again. What the devil do I want? he asked himself again and again. The wine I pour down is wasted: robbing Peter to pay Paul.
He was not drunk. It was his secret pride that wine could never bring him down. From time to time he stood up, paced up and down the cellar and again sat down. He despised the wine-bibbers who reeled about the place, stuttered, made much of their unwashed thoughts or set up a howling. At one moment he turned to Bertodulos. “Who was that she-demo
n you were talking about?” he asked, suddenly.
“Dysdemona, Captain. A prince’s daughter in Venice. Her hair was honey-fair and wound in plaits three times round her head, like a royal crown. She had a little olive birthmark, too, on her cheek. …”
“Go on!”
, “… And so, Captain, not to beat about the bush, this delicately bred prince’s daughter what a thing it is, the human soul! Fell in love with a Moor, a powerful fellow with giant limbs! But, to give the devil his due, a doughty palikar! And how do you think it came about that she fell in love with him? One night the great big rascal sat down beside her and told her about his life, like a book. And the girl was so stirred, she was filled with such a strong sympathy for what he had suffered, that she began crying and fell on his neck. ‘Ah, dear Moor,’ she said to him, ‘don’t be sad. I will console you. I will bring a smile to your lips.’”
Bertodulos drew breath, emptied his glass and sighed.
“Go on,” ordered Captain Michales again. “I’m sorry, Captain, my head’s gone blank, said Bertodulos, scratching his pointed skull to bring the memory back. “Remarkable things happened,” he said at last. “They didn’t stay in Venice, they journeyed to Cyprus. They got married, I think, and a white officer with gold stripes got mixed up in it. And later … I’ve forgotten again. It had to do with a handkerchief.”
“A handkerchief? Now you’re making it up, Bertodulos.”
“No, no, I’m not making it up, my lord. A handkerchief, a handkerchief really. But it was properly poisoned, bewitched how should I know? And the Moor became furious with jealousy, and one night he, that night brings it all back to me he stuffed the handkerchief into Dysdemona’s mouth and…”
A sobbing took hold of him, he pulled his scarf off, wiped his eyes and forehead and gave a loud cry: “… and he throttled her.”
The four drunken men, who had been craning their necks from all sides to listen, burst out laughing. But Captain Michales angrily shouted, “Quiet!” Then he turned to Bertodulos. “It’s not your fault. It was my fault for asking.”
He leaned his head heavily against the wall and closed Ms eyes. The Moor was right, he was thinking, he acted properly.
Meanwhile those around him had forgotten strangers’ sorrows. “Don’t cry, my little Bertodulos,” said Furogatos. “Those are all fairy tales. Only we are real. Here, Vendusos, play your lyre, my legs are twitching, I want to dance.”
The lyre with the bells on it was itself drunk and it sprang onto Vendusos’ knees like a Irving woman, a newly wedded one; Kajabes looked at her with a sigh, leaned his utterly fuddled head on his hand and began a long-drawn-out intoning.
And Efendina, with his scabby head wreathed in artichoke leaves and his belly swollen with wine and pork, clapped his hands and sat up straight as a candle. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, flung his arms round Furogatos’ shoulders, and danced like a madman to the devil with sainthood!
“Turn Christian, Efendina,” Furogatos implored him, “turn Christian, and come to Paradise riding on a pig!”
“I can’t, friends,” he replied sadly. “I can’t, and you must forgive me. Turk I was born, Turk I shall die.”
The eggs had already been eaten, shells and ah1. Now Captain Michales with a blow from his fist, smashed the pottery eggcups and distributed them to his guests to eat. Bertodulos, terrified, took his piece and clung breathless to a cask. With goggling eyes he watched the Cretans at his feet bite their bits of clay and chew them until they became sand and grit, which they swallowed with a snigger.
There are three sorts of men, Bertodulos slowly explained to himself: those who eat eggs without the shells, those who eat eggs with the shells and those who gobble them up with the shells and the eggcups as well. The third kind are called Cretans. Oh, oh, Count Mangiavino, what has brought you here? he asked himself, and glanced toward the door.
By dawn they had all laid down their arms. Some sprawled on the floor, snoring, some leaned with their heads against the casks and strained, groaning, to vomit. Bertodulos, who had already done his vomiting, found some water and washed. Then he hid his head in his cloak, which he wrapped twice around him, and stretched himself out in a corner. He lay there like a soaked hen with its feathers all over the place. Only Captain Mi-: chales full of drink but unaffected, held his head high and( stared through the little window at the breaking day.
As the light entered the cellar and lit up debris of food and pools of wine, and vomit, Captain Michales turned! and gazed at the five beaten nincompoops as though he’ saw them for the first time. And suddenly his heart gave a start of scorn. He pricked up his ears. He could hear his wife in the yard she was up already, drawing water from the well. He could hear the cocks of the neighborhood rowing. The noise of humans and animals awakening rose from the face of the earth. From afar the unending roar of the sea surrounded him. The mare whinnied in the yard. It was time for Charitos to bring her bucket of cold water and her fodder. The whinny mounted into the air as fresh as dew, it spurted like spring water. Captain Michales’ soul was refreshed by it.
“I’m beginning to think,” he muttered, “that I can only be friends with horses. Human beings seem to me to be nothing but pitiful idiots. Yes, if Crete had wolves and boars …”
He stood up, and stretched himself till his bones cracked. He gave each of his companions a kick and threw wine from a jug over them. “Forward!” he shouted. “Get up! To work!” All through the new day and the following night the carousing went on. The whip whistled when anyone tried to slack. Charitos ran up and down the stairs with dainties. Like brothers, Efendina and Bertodulos crammed each other full. In their mutual tenderness they marveled that they had lived so many years in the same town and only now had got to know and love each other.
“I’ll teach you to play the guitar.” said Bertodulos, “and then you’ll forget your worries. Then you’ll play and you’ll cross the streets without turning a hair.”
“And I’ll teach you,” replied Efendina, “how to carry flames about with you, Bertodulos my dear, and you’ll cool yourself at them.”
The count had got used to the Cretan atmosphere. It made him happy to love and embrace them all. Only before Captain Michales he remained shy. He, the witty gentleman of Zante, would have liked to crack a joke with the captain, but at the last moment the story would not pass his lips.
He turned to Vendusos. “We two, Signer Vendusos have you ever realized? We two aren’t men, we’re artists.”
“Artists? What the devil’s that?” “A sort of angel. Well, not exactly. There’s a little something lacking. Look here: there are animal sasses, mules and there are human beings. And then, above them, there are the artists, and higher still the angels. We two, my dear Vendusos, are artists.” “And so?’”
“And so, if you die a peaceful death, don’t forget to take ytfur lyre into the grave with you, as I’m taking my guitar. Yes, let’s die together, Vendusos, my little Vendusos. The angels too play lyres and guitars, and at the gate of Paradise we’ll give the great Maestro, whom the unmusical call God, a concert. I’ll sing canzoni and you’ll sing Cretan mantinades, until the great Maestro comes out to clash the cymbals for us and admit us into His immortal choir.”
Vendusos laughed. “You’ve said a mouthful, my little Bertodulos,” he said. “How do you propose that you should play the guitar, and I the lyre, without hands, without fingers? Have you seen what becomes of hands and fingers in the earth?”
“Be quiet, you wretch! You’re making my hair stand on end!” cried the count, and wrapped himself tighter in his cloak. “Do you mean that even the hands that play guitars … ?”
“All, all, my friend in misfortune, all!” “Well, let’s get drunk, while we’ve still got hands and throats!” shouted Furogatos, filling the glasses. “And women, Vendusos? Do they too turn … ?”
“All of them, all–”
“Even if they’re beautiful like the sun?” “Even then; But what’s up with Captain Mic
hales?” Captain Michales was frowning. “Better let your hands do the talking, Vendusos. And you your feet, Furogatos. Your tongues should keep quiet.” “At your orders, Captain Michales.” Furogatos jumped up. What more could he ask Vendusos placed the lyre on his right knee, Kajabes raised his hand to his cheek, and dance and song began again. Outside, the day was enveloped in the fire of the sun, but the life of the boon companions played itself but n that cellar. Noon came and went. The sun sank, night took possession once more. In the middle of the table and on the casks the fat candles burned. At the next daybreak there the men lay again on the floor like abortions, exhausted, saffron yellow. Corners and ‘walls were again bespattered, and their clothes were a mass of wine and grease spots. A stench rose from their mouths and hah”.
Motionless, Captain Michales watched over them. At last he turned his face to the little window, not to have to look at them any longer. He was thinking of nothing, he was only feeling, as he had been now for two days and two nights, how his entrails wavered and no longer found firm ground. As he sat thus with his head leaning against the wall, sleep like a flash surprised him a flash, no longer than that. But long enough for the demon to master him.
At first it seemed to Captain Michales that he was walking into a cool, vernal cloud. Still dazed from the heat, wine and suffering, he wandered into it, and the cloud embraced him, held him under the arms and raised him, and from below caressed his body and thighs. But slowly the cloud changed, thickened, became a face. First there emerged two feminine lips, then the twinkle of two wild, shameless eyes, full of mockery and disdain. And last, two tiny feet with red-stained soles and two snow-white hands. The lips moved and a voice rushed forth like gurgling water: “Captain Michales, Captain Michales!”
Captain Michales wrenched himself out of the dream with such a jerk that the table capsized, and everything on it glasses, plates, candles, tobacco boxes rolled all over the room. The five sleepers sprang up. Daylight had reached the cellar. They looked about them and gazed at Captain Michales, who had grabbed the whip from the wall and now made a rush at them.
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