Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island

by Lawrence Durrell

  We entered the broad gate of the outer barbican in sympathetic silence, Kollis smiling to himself as if he surmised my own surprise and pleasure. Indeed Bellapaix on that radiant spring morning looked like a backdrop for Comus. The great church doors stood open upon the rich shadowy interior with its one colored window which stained the flags with a splash as of spilt wine. Footsteps and voices echoing in the musty interior. We paused to buy a farthing dip before examining the icons in the little chancel. “The church is still in use,” explained my guide, “and that gives the whole ruin life. It’s something more than just an antiquity. It is the village church, my church—and indeed your own since you are coming to live here.” Outside in the courtyard lay the familiar branches of green laurel which would later make incense for the villagers. On the breathless silence of the cool air came the small sounds of the village which later I could identify exactly, attaching to each the name of a friend: Michaelis’s bees burring among the blossoms, Andreas’s pigeons murmuring; the sharp knocking and planing from Loizus’s little carpentry shop; the rumble of an olive drum being rolled along the street by Anthemos to where a bus waited; the high clear voice of Lalou singing to the dirge of the spindle.… They existed for me as sounds without orchestration or meaning, not more human than the whistle of swifts below the Abbey, or the distant whirr of a motor-car spinning down the white ribbon of road below.

  The full magnificence of the Abbeys position is not clear until one enters the inner cloister, through a superb gate decorated with marble coats of arms, and walks to the very edge of the high bluff on which it stands, the refectory windows framing the plain below with its flowering groves and curling palm trees. We looked at each other, smiling. Kollis was too wise to waste words on it, realizing perhaps how impossible it would be to do justice to the whole prospect. He told me nothing about it, and I wished to know nothing; we simply walked in quiet, bemused friendship among those slender chipped traceries and tall-shanked columns, among the armorial shields of forgotten knights and the blazing orange trees, until we came into the shadow of the great refectory with its high roofs where the swallows were building, their soft agitations echoing in the silence like breathing, our own breathing, captured and magnified in the trembling silence with an unearthly fidelity. I found myself repeating in my mind, without conscious thought, but irresistibly—echoes in a sea-shell—some lines from Comus, built as this place had been built, as a testimony to the powers of contemplation which rule our inner lives. Bellapaix, even in ruins, was a testimony to those who had tried, however imperfectly, to grasp and retain their grip on the inner substance of the imagination, which resides in thought, in contemplation, in the Peace which had formed part of its original name, and which in my spelling I have always tried to retain. The Abbey de la Paix, corrupted by the Venetians into Bella Paise.… It was to take me nearly a year to gain currency for the spelling Bellapaix, which is as near as one can get today to its original.

  But no such thought was in my mind that first spring morning as I walked in those deserted cloisters, touching the rosy stones of the old Abbey with an idle hand, noticing the blaze of flowers from the beds which Kollis tended so lovingly—and here and there, bursting from a clump of fallen masonry, cracking the rock triumphantly, the very plumes of yellow fennel which the good Mrs. Lewis had observantly noticed, adding with all the delight of the amateur botanist: “It is the Narthex of Prometheus. It likes old ruins best, growing there more freely than on the natural rock. In the hollow tube of its long dry cane, which remains stiffly standing when the flowers and leaves have perished, Aeschylus says Prometheus brought down the fire from heaven, and thus speaks Prometheus bound:

  I bear the yoke who stole

  The fount of fire and in a reed (narthex) enclosed

  Transferred to men the precious gift which hath

  Become the mistress of all arts and crafts

  In that silence the light airs of the plain climbed up to us, full of the small sound of birds as they stooped and dived in the blue gulf below. Somewhere near at hand came the rustle and dribble of spring-water feeding the flowers.

  “If this were all, it would be enough,” said Kollis, “but let us go up.” He led the way up a crumbling staircase to where the roofs fanned away in galleries, and from which new panoramas opened to the east and west. As we ascended, Kyrenia came into view again and the whole fretted coast like lacework. I had begun to feel guilty of an act of fearful temerity in trying to settle in so fantastic a place. Could one ever do any work with such scenery to wonder at? And this fantastic mixture of the Gothic north and the gentle alluring Levantine plains spreading out from the Kyrenia range soft as a lion’s paw.… How did Lady Hester come to miss this Abbey?

  We walked out of the great arch once more into the little square where the others sat waiting for us. The group had now been swelled by one or two fine-looking old gentlemen who were quite obviously consumed with curiosity about the new foreigner. They were massive and booted mountaineers with craggy faces and splendid sweeping moustaches. One of them, Morais, owned the house directly above mine, where he lived alone with his young daughter. He addressed a few rough questions to the muktar, accompanied by a keen and by no means friendly glance or two at me, before stumping off up the street leading a pony laden with sacks. “You may have words with him,” said the muktar quietly. “He’s not a bad chap—but, well—many of them feel strongly about Enosis these days. But take it calmly.”

  Of the friendliness of the other two men there could be no doubt. Andreas Menas was as brown as a nut, with the liveliest and kindest eyes one could hope to see; he was in his late fifties but in every movement betrayed an agility and ease of movement which suggested a body kept young by unremitting physical work. His handshake was warm and innocent. He was my next-door neighbor but one. He at least belied the indolence attributed to the villagers by popular superstition, for when he came to work on the house he never left his job before dusk had fallen, and he was always there on the dot in the morning. And this, despite the fact that every Sunday he took his morning coffee under the fatal tree! Michaelis was big and moustached like a pirate or a Keystone cop; his massive strength, like that of a rooted tree, showed in every movement which threw out the line of a bicep against his rough sailor’s jersey. But it was strength without guile—his shy slow smile spoke of good fellowship and spontaneity. He came of a long line of gentle topers who had filled the air of village taverns with the noise of singing and laughter, and as a storyteller he was incomparable. During the lunch hour, while we worked on the house, he would take his food and can of wine to the shade of a lemon tree and tell stories which held the other workmen enthralled. Indeed so successful was he that work itself began to fall off until I put a veto on his gift. Thereafter he would sit with a somewhat reproachful air under the tree and tease the workmen who always besought him for stories: “Ah, Michaelis, tell us a story, do. Just a short one.”

  “And the boss?” he would say, his eyes glittering with mischief, as he looked across at me. “The boss hears,” I would say. “In half an hour we work.”

  “Tell us a short one,” they would plead.

  “Ask the boss,” he would say, “and I’ll tell you of the comedy of the Englishman who came to our village to buy a house and of the wicked widow who cast eyes upon him.…”

  Laughter. “Tell us. Tell us,” they pleaded; and indeed my own pleasure and instruction demanded that we should hear him out, so that sometimes I found myself pleading too. “That’s a fine state of affairs,” he would rumble. “First the boss stops me telling stories. Then he himself wants a story. And he a writer of stories!”

  It was Michaelis who now stood massively smiling, with one arm resting on the shoulder of Anthemos, the grocer, whose little shop stood at the foot of the hill and from whom I would have to obtain food and fuel. He was a portly youth full of quaint humors. “Sir, I am hoping to grow fat on you. My shop needs a Noble Buyer like yourself. Otherwise how shall I marry next
year?”

  “What of your wife’s dowry?” I said, and got my laugh. “His wife’s dowry is already consumed,” said Andreas. They were all still entranced by the novelty of my Greek—a fact which never ceased to puzzle me. Indeed, throughout my stay in Cyprus, wherever I went, the fact that I spoke Greek was regarded as a phenomenon. It thrilled people. Why, I don’t know. There were a number of Government officials who knew the language better than I. But always a conversation in Greek created a stir, until I felt like a Talking Mongoose.

  When formal introductions had been completed the whole company drifted with me up the hill, talking and laughing, to visit the house. I was pleased to learn from them that the price I had paid for it was a reasonable one. The cobbler was regarded as rather a fool, however, for not asking twice the sum and sticking to it. News of the water supply had gone round now, and the muktar agreed that a water-point outside my door would enable me to pipe off as much as I needed for domestic use. That would certainly increase the value of the house. And later when the electric light came, as it had already come to Lapithos … another increase.

  All this was warming news, as warming as the cries of “Welcome” which came to me from the old carved porches and windows fronting the stony path up to the house. There was a spontaneous guileless joy about them—so that all my doubts vanished at once, and I was only afraid that the old house itself would not come up to expectations. I had put the huge key in the breast-pocket of my coat and now I produced it amidst acclamations. Andreas seized it from me and, agile as a monkey, vanished ahead of us to open the doors and set everything to rights for the contractor’s examination. My rucksack was grabbed from me and heaved on to Michaelis’s great shoulder. Andreas Kallergis took my book and bottle of wine. I had the feeling that if I wasn’t careful they would pick me up and carry me up the steep and stony incline, so that I might be spared the breathless scramble of the last hundred yards.

  Everything confirmed itself, like the quivering of a magnetic needle as it settles on the Pole Star, when I saw the house again in full sunlight. The great high hallway was cool and shadowy. The heifer and the barley alike had vanished. We climbed upon the balcony as if upon a cloud to watch a flock of white pigeons take off from the roof below and fan out in perfect formation on the blue, the flicker of their wings twinkling frostily like the early Pleiades. We drank a glass of wine up there in the crisp air while Andreas Menas told the trees, with the sort of loving comprehension that comes to those who have planted them and watched them bear. “A vine here and a vine there,” he said stroking his moustache with a brown hand, “and in a year you could give this whole balcony shade. Why bother with concrete?” He pronounced the word after the village fashion, “gongree.” Meanwhile Michaelis explored the two fine cellars and pronounced them large enough to house anything up to two camels. Andreas Kallergis sat drawing in the dust with his finger, waiting to see what ideas I had for the place.

  Outside in the stony street a crowd of small children and several old men had gathered. Quite a conversation was going on—in such pure patois that I couldn’t follow it, but Michaelis clicked his tongue disapprovingly and glared down upon them from the high balcony, asking whether he might be permitted to throw a little water on them. “Why?” I asked. He looked very distressed. “It’s that fellow Morais, saying things again.”

  Morais was carrying on a grumbling monologue in a harsh voice which went something like this: “And now if we are going to have the swine actually living in our villages.… It’s bad enough to have them as masters.…” He was not receiving any moral support from his audience I noticed, even though they must all sympathize with his views. Indeed, I could see from their expressions that this outburst was regarded as in very poor taste—for it infringed the iron law of hospitality. “You go down,” said Andreas to Michaelis, “and tell him off.”

  But I thought that here I saw an opening for my talent. Long residence in remote Greek islands had made me not unskillful in dealing with ruffled feelings—and, after all, Morais was only behaving like a Scotsman or a Welshman when faced with the foul invader. Indeed Cypriot manners at their worst never came near the stupidities and impertinences I endured from the Scots on my only visit to the Rump. Besides, being of a somewhat scientific turn of mind I wished to see whether Morais would prove an exception to the law I had formulated about Greek character, namely: “To disarm a Greek you have only to embrace him.”

  Accordingly I said: “Let me go. After all, we are to be neighbors.”

  They looked most anxious as I went down the staircase into the hall and out through the front door. Morais stood there in the street with a troubled aggressive expression on his face, holding a willow crook. Knife and water-bottle were at his waist. He was leaning against the wall of the old water-tank. I walked up to him and embraced him saying: “Neighbor, I have come to live with you. I know what Greek hospitality is. I want you to know that I am always ready to be of service to my neighbor. I have heard praise of you everywhere in the village as a fine honest farmer.”

  Inexorable chain of scientific reasoning! He looked absolutely amazed and put out of countenance. He began to stammer out something, but I ducked back into the door and left him to the mercy of his friends who had shown an evident delight and appreciation of this little performance. “Well said,” cried an old man, who looked as if he wanted to snatch a kiss while they were flying about; and from the balcony above Andreas and Michaelis growled approvingly. Poor Morais! He made one or two ineffectual attempts to speak but was drowned by the voices chiding him. “There!” they cried. “Is that any way to behave to a neighbor? You see what you’ve done with your boorishness? Given us all a bad reputation.”

  He stamped up the hill to his house looking extremely thoughtful. My friends on the balcony greeted me with chuckles and acclamations, as if I had pulled off a splendid diplomatic coup—which perhaps I had. At any rate it was a valuable test of the public temper for it showed that, despite the political tide, I could count on sympathies based in common neighborliness. Indeed never once in the dark days to come did the affection of my village neighbors falter.

  And now the patient and laborious task of costing began and Andreas moved from point to point, from room to room, with his footrule poised like a stethoscope to sound every corner of the old house. He pronounced the whole of stout workmanship and provided I built lightly and skillfully over it, likely to last me “half a dozen lifetimes.” As we walked and talked, too, ideas came to me. The hall could be enclosed by an arch which would take the stress of the balcony at the garden end; the bathroom could go beside the main staircase with a storage tank above it. If I threw a roof across the lower end of the balcony it would give me two extra rooms which would share the magnificent view of the Abbey. I was beginning to be seized by the most intoxicating of all manias—that of building for oneself. What made it doubly exciting was the fact that I had so little money with which to carry out the work—and even that little was dwindling day by day as I lived on it. Detail was going to be of the utmost importance here, and it was not long before I had a notebook full of relevant data about laborers’ wages, costings for materials, and so on.…

  It was nearly four o’clock before that first long session was complete and Andreas’s tireless footrule had measured up every centimeter of wall length in the house. The wine had gone now, and one by one my new friends had sauntered off about their various tasks. We decided, after one more look round from the balcony, to go down to Dmitri for a glass of something cold. In the courtyard below me Lalou sat, tirelessly spinning, her blonde Frankish head of curls inclined towards the old carved uprights of the loom as if to a harp. Her father and mother unloaded the mule. In the little dome-shaped oven bread was baking; plates loaded with gleaming tangerines and almonds stood on a table under a vine. Chickens sauntered about their lawful occasions. The banana leaves crackled in the light breeze.

  To the east of me, now deeply shadowed by the steep mountain behind, which h
ad covered the sun, stood another old house covered by the luxuriance of a gigantic apricot tree, where two fine-looking girls combed out their hair upon a balcony. Below them a tough young man polished a motorcycle while two more sawed wood, and an old woman with a grave classical face stuffed pimento. The great gates of the courtyard stood open. I was soon to know why.

  It all started with distant shouts and oaths and the noise of hooves—as if a company of ogres had set about one another in the olive glades above us. (The great earthquake which followed later that year made no such impression on me.) It bore down on us gradually increasing in volume, the human shouts mingled with the strangled lowing of cattle in extremis, and swelling to a roar as it entered the ravine to mingle with the rushing sound of the spring. It sounded like someone leading a desperate cavalry charge. “What on earth is that?” I said. We went to the balcony’s edge and peered up into the grained backdrop of mountain. A group of children spouted out of one of the narrow alleys screaming with laughter and shouting: “He’s coming now. Look out everyone.” And as the noise grew louder elderly gentlemen hopped spryly into doorways to take cover while the family under the apricot tree cocked an ear and began to giggle. “Here he comes, the fool,” said the old Homeric lady baring her toothless gums. I was a little reassured by their evident familiarity with the phenomenon, whatever it might prove to be. “Here he comes,” shouted another excitable old gentleman waving a wand. The windows about us were now stocked with smiling faces, as if we were to be treated to some sort of spectacle, which indeed we were.

  A dozen cattle came slipping and sliding down that stony brink at the pace of racehorses, bursting across the main street in a confused tangle of horns and udders, urged on by the inhuman yells of the man who, half dragged along, shouting with laughter, held the twisted tail of the hindmost in his knotted hand. He was screwing it as he shouted. In his free arm he was waving a water-gourd. His roars and screams were fearsome to hear, but they set the whole street in a roar of laughter. With his great sweeping moustache, sweat-beslobbered shirt and black trews set off by tall mountaineer’s boots, he was a heroic figure belonging to the age of the Titans; he looked like some dispossessed character from the same Homeric cycle, who had yoked the oxen of the sun.