“Suleiman,” the pasha ordered, when he had had his fill of laughing, “that man’s no fool! Who would believe it? The two of them have more sense, by my faith, than the Metropolitan and me. Give them a raki and something nice to eat besides.”
“And a decoration?” asked Barba Jannis, disappointed. “Isn’t there a decoration, Pasha Effendi?” “Hey, you’ve got one. That’s enough.” “But what about Efendina?” said Barba Jannis, pointing to his friend, whose breeches were sliding.
“Give him a bit of string, Suleiman, to make his breeches fast with,” the pasha ordered. “That’s enough. That’s all the decoration there is. Out with you, I’m busy.”
When the pasha arrived at Archondula’s, he saw to his satisfaction that the Metropolitan’s ass was already tied to the door ring.
“There, the priest’s arrived before me,” he said. “That means he recognizes my seniority.”
Suleiman helped him down from the horse. He walked across the big, paved yard with its pots of flowers. The old maid who was mistress of it all came out to greet him. She was laced up in stays and as thin as a bean pole; her nose stuck spitefully out of her powdered face.
The Metropolitan was standing and the pasha bowed to him as he came into the room. They both sat opposite each other and the Metropolitan took out his rosary. The old maid withdrew, leaving the two high authorities alone.
The Metropolitan warmed his hands over the bronze brazier in front of him. He was frozen. The pasha yawned sleepily. When the Metropolitan saw him yawn, he also yawned.
“It’s cold today, Pasha Effendi,” said the Metropolitan at last, to open the conversation.
“Yes, winter’s come, Metropolitan Effendi,” replied the pasha, yawning again. He bent over the brazier and continued to speak, but with great difficulty:
“The fumes of charcoal, so I’ve heard, cause dizziness. I feel dizzy.”
“If the charcoal isn’t red-hot all through, so I’ve heard,” said the Metropolitan, and yawned.
The conversation died. The pasha grew tired of holding his hands over the brazier and placed them on his knees. He looked about him. He glanced at the big clock on the wall. On top of a carved chest there stood a green vase illed with red velvet roses, and near it a plaster Moor with a hollow head full of matches. And above the door there was his own portrait, resplendent with reds, golds and blacks. As he admired his own handsomeness, the pasha gave a start. It seemed to him that the tassel on his fez in the picture had moved.
He shuddered. “Metropolitan Effendi,” he said uneasily, “I just saw that tassel move. Is that possible?”
The Metropolitan was tired and depressed. But he gathered ah” his strength together, to examine the painting.
“Is it possible, Metropolitan Effendi?” asked the pasha again.
“What, Pasha Effendi?” “There! For the tassel in the picture to move.” “No, it’s impossible, Pasha Effendi,” the Metropolitan asserted, and leaned his heavy head against the back of the chair. The pasha did the same and closed his eyes. When the Metropolitan saw this, he closed his.
The cuckoo came out of the clock and called out the hour. The north wind outside blew the shriveled leaves violently across the yard. A sparrow hungrily pecked the pane with his beak. Hearing a terrible snore, it flew away in alarm. The gigantic cat belonging to the house glided in and jumped on the Metropolitan’s lap. Curling up, it warmed itself at his belly and slept contentedly, purring…, The cuckoo again announced the hour.
Archondula anxiously put her ear to the door. She heard only long-drawn-out, comfortable sounds of snoring, one set heavy, like a drum, the other blaring cheerfully, like a trumpet.
I’ll make them some coffee to rouse them, she said to herself. She went into the kitchen and put the pot on the fire.
Soon afterward the pasha heard the door creak, opened his eyes, and saw the old maid with the round salver.
“Sleep has overcome him,” he said mockingly, and pointed at the slumbering Metropolitan. “The poor man’s no longer up to it. He’s grown old.”
As the scent of the coffee entered his nose, the Metropolitan too opened his eyes.
“Hearty thanks, Archondula,” he said, reaching out for the cup. “I was longing for that. A hair’s breadth and I’d have fallen asleep.”
Both of them sipped loudly and happily. The Metropolitan turned to the pasha. “The wheat promises well this year, Pasha Effendi.”
“The barley too, Metropolitan Effendi;” answered the pasha in faulty Greek, and stood up. “We have spent our time well today. Let’s meet another day and negotiate further.”
“With pleasure, Pasha Effendi,” said the Metropolitan, gripping the chair and likewise standing up.
A crowd had collected outside. It had become known that the two leaders were meeting in that grand house, for the first time hi so many months, to negotiate and to restore harmony in the land. And so the people waited in the cold, to gape at them as they walked hand in hand out of the door.
Kasapakes the doctor came by and stopped. He saw Aristoteles the chemist standing there waiting.
“What’s up, Mr. Aristoteles?” he asked. “Somebody died?’;
“Bite off your tongue, doctor,” answered Mr. Aristoteles. “The pasha and the Metropolitan are in there, holding council. Someone caught sight of them through the window. He saw them in the room, with papers spread out before them. The Metropolitan was writing and the pasha was speaking, making gestures with his hands. Now they’re putting their seals to it. How’s Madame Marcelle?”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“Always the same. To give her a change of air, I’ve taken her to my brother Katsabas’ country place.”
He spoke with contentment, for he had succeeded in throwing her out so that he could stay on alone with the servant girl.
While they were still chatting, Mr. Demetros Leanbot-torn came hobbling up from the end of the street. For the first time in seven months he had come home from the villages, where he had been wandering about with his umbrella, in order, he said, to get rid of his congestion of the heart. During his wanderings he had seldom opened his mouth to speak. The peasants said that the fames had robbed him of his speech, and they honored him as one smitten by demons. They would offer him a piece of bread, and he would take it and push on, chewing, to another village. Sometimes he held the umbrella gripped tightly under his arm, sometimes he opened it, depending on the weather.
As long as Crete struggled with Charos, Mr. Demetros had wandered about, full of anxiety. Now that peace had come to Crete, he too wanted to find peace and return to his wife Penelope. His boots were worn out, his clothes torn, he had lost his hat. His breeches, too wide now for his thin thighs, flapped in the wind like a woman’s skirts.
“How thin the sad fellow’s got,” said the fat doctor with a laugh, “his breeches are empty.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll fill them again,” replied Mr. Aristoteles, shaking his cucumber head. Ah, that’s nothing to compare with my misfortune! he thought, and then of his grocery in Broad Street, and of how he had no son to inherit it; and of his three shriveled sisters and the three peepholes in the door, through which they observed the worldtheir only pleasure.
“Welcome, Mr. Demetros,” said the doctor to the newcomer.” How are things going with you?”
“Glory to God, I’ve broken my foot,” replied Mr. Demetros, and passed on.
“Only the weak in the head enjoy the world,” muttered the chemist, gazing after him. “Woethree limes woe to people of sense!”
“Oh, I’d quite forgotten,” cried the doctor, “I must o.”
“A patient?”
“Yes. It’s the Jewess Captain Michales’ nephew brought back. She’s had a miscarriage. Pretty, fair-haired girl have you seen her?”
“So that’s his game now,” said the chemist with malicious pleasure, and raised himself on tiptoe to see what was going on in Archondula’s yard, to be able to tell his sisters. The excite
d crowd now saw the stately, white-bearded Metropolitan stepping solemnly across the yard between the pots of flowers to the door, arm in arm with the plump, bristle-bearded pasha. Christians and Turks made room for them, to let them through. The pasha, now quite awake, smilingly greeted the waiting crowd. But the Metropolitan was frowning as he leaned heavily on his crosier. He was impatient to be rid of the Turk. The deacon untied the ass from the ring; Suleiman brought the pasha’s horse.
Meanwhile, hi the house of her parents-in-law, a weight of suffering had fallen on Noemi. Last night she had not closed her eyes. She kept thinking of her husband, alone on the mountain, and of her son, who was growing in her and pressing her hard. A strange dread kept her awake, a dark menace lay in the air. An invisible body, a soundless voice, a ghost … Was it the dead man? As this thought came to her, the sweat flowed from her pores. Feeling that she would stifle, she sprang up and opened the window. Cutting morning air came in. Noemi went downstairs and found the mother bent over the hearth, lighting the fire.
“Mother,” she said, “I don’t feel well. I’m going out to get some air.”
When the mother saw her, she shrank back. The young woman seemed devoured by fear; her bones stuck out. Great dark rings circled her eyes.
“Where are you going so early in the morning, in this cold, my child?” she asked, full of pity. “You’ll overstrain yourself.”
Noemi hesitated. She was ashamed to betray her dread, and to say where she now planned to go.
“Don’t you know where you’re going?” the old woman asked.
“I know, Mother. To church. To light a candle.”
The mother gave a cry. “Have you seen him in a dream, my child?”
“Yes.”
The mother stared into the air. Her chin was trembling. The young woman was right. He was not dead yet. He came through the air. He passed through doors. He still had some evil design. “Child,” she said at last, in a muffled voice, as if she was afraid the dead man might hear her, “go, light a candle for him. Pray to him to have pity on you. But in God’s name don’t tell him that his grandsonthat you”
“No, Mother, I won’t tell him.”
“Take my shawl and wrap yourself up properly. Otherwise you’ll catch cold.”
The church was empty. Faint light filtered through the colored windows and awoke the saints in the icons; it shone on the candelabra, the bronze candlesticks and, above the shrine with the prayer books, Saint Menas on horseback. Noemi picked up a candle from the bench and went over to the big icon of the Virgin, which hung on the iconostasis beside the Beautiful Gate. She dared not speak directly to the dead man; she wanted to call upon the Virgin Mother to act as mediatress between them.
The silver lamp burning before the Virgin softly lighted her stubborn chin, her two sad almond eyes, and the cherry-red band embroidered with gold stars around her head. Noemi knelt down and looked up at her speechlessly for a long time. The longer she looked, the lighter and milder her heart became. The young woman was holding her Son tightly in her arms, as though she were afraid she would be robbed of Him: she baned her cheek tenderly against His cheek and held a small wooden cross before Him as a toy….
Noemi stood up, lighted the candle in the candlestick, put her mouth close to the Virgin, and spoke to her. She did not yet know the prayers: she spoke to her as to a ood neighbor at whose door you knock in heavy trouble. “Mother,” she said to her, “I am the Jewess Noemi. I’ve come from the other end of the world. I’ve left my father’s faith and become a Christian. I am in great trouble, Mother, help me! Tell him he’s not to come at night to torment me, tell him he’s not to do me any harm. I wish nothing but good for his house, I love his son, I have no other pleasure. Mother, I will tell you this too, but don’t tell him: in three months I too will be a mother. I’m afraid of his doing my son some harm. Don’t let him! I fall at your feet, Mother of all the mothers in the world. Have mercy on me!”
She raised her eyes. She saw the Virgin looking down sadly and hopelessly. Her eyes seemed suddenly to be full of tears. Noemi shuddered. She took from her ear the golden ring, a present from Kosmas, and hung it on the icon-shrine. “It’s all I have, Holy Virgin,” she whispered. “This ring is for you. Think of me!”
When she came home, Maria saw her and turned her face violently away. The mother went to meet her and asked, “Did you light a candle to him, my child? Did you hear a voice? Did he say anything?”
“Mother, I’ll go and lie down. I’m tired,” she answered, and breathing heavily she slowly went upstairs and stretched herself on the wide iron bed on which, while he was alive, the dead man had embraced his wife. The air was heavy. Noemi breathed hard and kept her eyes open. She was afraid the dead man might enter in the darkness, if she closed her eyes. The clock downstairs struck again and again, and from the minarets there rang out, passionately and harmoniously, the voice of the muezzin. Noon! She had a bitter taste in her mouth. She could not go down to eat; she lay there, her eyes fixed on the tall date palm that rose above the roofs from Archondula’s courtyard. A violent wind was blowing, the shutters clattered, and the scimitar-like leaves of the palm clashed against each other. Opposite her, on the icon-shrine, the little lamp flickeredthe tiny flame seemed to want to ly way from the wick. But Noemi had not the strength to get up and fill the lamp with oil.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes. Did sleep overcome her? She did not know. But when she closed her eyes, she felt, with horrible certainty, that someone, without opening the door, had come into the room. Noemi cowered to the farthest edge of the bed and forced herself to open her eyes. No one! And yet she felt that someone was standing in front of her, between the bedposts.
“It’s he,” Noemi whispered, full of dread, staring into the air. The little lamp had gone out. The icon was sunk in shadow.
The longer she stared, the more strongly she felt the air in front of the bed thicken and take on a shape. At first two silver pistols gleamed hi the air, then a powerful neck and a black, waxed mustache and two eyes, lowering from behind thick, bristling brows….
“Holy Virgin!” Noemi screamed. “Help! Drive him away!”
But he raised his hand, seized the coverlet and wrenched it aside. Then he struck at Noemi’s body with his fist.
The girl gave a shriek and rolled from the bed to the floor. The Mother heard her, ran upstairs, and found her in a pool of blood.
“Maria,” she cried, “the doctor! Quick!”
She removed the stillborn child, rubbed Noemi’s temples with perfume,“lighted the lamp again and waited for the doctor. As she waited she made secret lament for her stillborn grandson. And now her daughter-in-law, pale as wax, opened her eyes and cast bewildered glances about her. Where was she? What was this blood? Who had struck her? Whence came this unbearable pain inside her? She pressed her lips together in order not to cry out. She saw the mother bending over her and stretched out her hands toward her.
“Mother,” she whispered, “it hurts,” and closed her eyes again.
The mother sat down beside her, moistened her tempies again with perfume, and thought of her son. When would her dear one learn of this misfortune? Where might he be at this moment? In the grandfather’s courtyard?
But Kosmas was already a long way away from the grandfather’s courtyard. Through night and rain he had climbed the steep slope of the mountain. The picture of the grandfather, dying as the lyre gave him the answer to his question, soared before his soul in overwhelming beauty.
Kosmas had been followed in silence by the bowed body of old Charidimos. Suddenly Charidimos stopped dead. He could bear the silence no longer. For him a journey meant conversation and jesting, but this man in the Prankish clothes did not talk and did not laugh.
“Why are you in such a hurry, master? To see Captain Michales? Damn him! The best thing would be for you not to see him. But if your destiny demands that you should, then as late as possible. And as shortly as possible. I was sent the day before yesterday by your g
randfather, to tell him that he lay dying and expected him to come and say good-by. When he turned and looked at me so savagely, it gave me a turn,”
“Don’t worry, Charidimos. He’s my uncle. His blood is mine. I’m not afraid of him,” answered Kosmas, without stopping.
“Are you strong enough to oppose him? I swear you won’t be!”
“I shall be strong enough. But don’t talk now! Hey!” Kosmas was still determined not to mar this hour of silent gathering of his thoughts. For he was brooding not only over his grandfather but over that hard, knotty bough on the tree, Captain Michales, who perhaps held in his hands the fate of Crete. Where co-aid he find him? How was he to speak with him? What was he to say to him? What demon was riding him?
“It was his fault that the Christ the Lord Monastery was lost,” the Metropolitan had told him. “And now he wants to wash away his dishonor. That’s why he won’t . give in. Perhaps he wants to be killed, to pay in full.”
“But if the well-being of Crete requires otherwise?” Kosmas had asked.
The Metropolitan had hesitated, weighing his words. “God forgive me,” he had murmured at last, “but I believe your uncle has a demon inside him, whose name is not Crete.”
“There’s a dark moment in his life,” his other uncle,N Tityros, had confided to him. “A mystery about Captain Polyxigis and a Turkish woman. There’s a lot of talk about it. His heart is wild, it no longer follows his brain.”
“He was jealous about Arkadi,” the gnome Charilaos had told him mockingly. “So the rascal took it into his head that he too would blow something sky-high, so that people should sing a song about him!”
Perhaps they were all right, thought Kosmas, as he climbed upward through the rain, sliding on the slippery stones. How could he move his uncle to make use of the pasha’s promise to permit him to retire intact with weapons and banners? Should he stress that the Metropolitan desired it? That the King of Greece demanded it? Would he not shrug his shoulders with contempt? Was he not devoid of all trust in people?’
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