by Arnold Zable
‘For us it is a war fuelled by dreams of a greater Byzantium. Of avenging bygone humiliations, the loss of Constantinople, and throwing off the imperial yoke. And for our enemy, the Ottoman Turk, it is a threat to a disintegrating empire. They have ruled the roost for so long they are not about to give up. A tyrant does not willingly give up his slaves. And for young men it is an age-old call to savagery and death.’
Niko’s hand trembled as he poured the wine. He paced about the hovel. His thin body seemed to shrink further within his shabby clothes. ‘Beware of those who speak of cultural purity and build citadels, walled borders and cast out those who belong to other tribes. They sing the same song and chorus as they loot and kill: “We are pure, and God is on our side, while our foes are in the service of the devil. May they rot in hell.”’
I wanted to run. His words mocked everything I had been taught. I smelt the drink on his breath, the rot in his blackened teeth. ‘We must tear words apart to liberate their meaning,’ he shouted. ‘Every nation thinks they are civilised, and the others are barbarians. Look hard at the word. Dissect it. Put each syllable under a magnifying glass. Ba. Ba. Ba.’ Niko barked the words. ‘Ba. Ba. Ba. It is the babble of foreign tongues. Ba. Ba. Ba. The babble of those who speak a language other than one’s own.
‘Every empire has taken its turn to hoard land and gold. Yesterday’s allies become tomorrow’s enemies and we turn on each other to fight over the spoils. Revenge circles the battlefield like a hawk scanning prey. Neighbours who have lived in peace set fire to each other’s homes. The looted become the looters, and former slaves become masters who become slaves, and so it goes.
‘And each nation thinks they possess what the ancient Greeks called mesotes, measuredness, while the others are cast as savage mobs. We forget that when given a chance, we have been just as cruel as any other race. Read The Iliad and you will see it. We were not angels in Troy. Listen to returned warriors in the quiet of the night, or when they have drunk too much, as they unburden themselves of the horrors they inflicted in the name of their cause. Enter their dreams and see the deeds they have had to commit, and which they have wiped clean from their waking hours.
‘Travel deeper still, and discover that their comrades ran to their deaths with tears flowing down their faces, and the names of their mothers on their lips. And know this is what is truly meant when we speak of the Underworld.’
His words were treasonous. He would have been driven from the coffee houses and the company of men. He would have been cast out of gathering places and banished from the tribe. ‘You are spitting on the brave deeds of our soldiers,’ I shouted.
Niko shook his head. ‘A seaman comes to know the madness,’ he said. ‘He sees it with his own eyes. I have seen what men do to each other. I have sat on hillsides and looked at the smoking ruins of razed villages. I have watched fleeing peasants leading donkeys piled with quilts and mattresses, ox-drawn wagons crammed with pots and heirlooms, and panicking children clinging to the roofs of overcrowded trains. I have heard that howl of infinite grief that accompanies the news of a loved one’s death. I have travelled far. I have seen too much. It is a disease far worse than the syphilis the villagers are so sure I have.’
I returned to the fray. I rested my case on the tale of the women of Zalongo. Every schoolchild could recite it by heart. On 18 December 1803, in Zalongo, a cliff in Ipeiros, fifty-seven women chose to die rather than be captured by the Turks. They moved together, hands held in a circle dance. One by one, they approached the cliffs, threw their children over, and jumped to their deaths.
I spoke of the battle of Lepenti, fought off the mainland, not far from our shores, an epic struggle that had secured the Ionian Islands for the Venetians from the Ottoman Turk. I spoke of the siege of Messolongi and of our people’s brave deaths. Niko clutched his bottle and laughed. ‘Yes, they were brave, but you are a monkey performing his master’s tricks. One day you will learn we are all captive to our tribal myths.’
I ran from the hovel as if fleeing the devil. I heard Niko’s mocking laughter as I ran, and in the time I remained on the island I never spoke to him again. I slipped away whenever he approached, but his words would return to haunt me. He had planted the seeds of doubt and robbed me of the certainty that would have given my life a simple purpose.
Years later, I came to understand Niko’s agony. He was filled with too much knowledge. He had gone beyond the myths that keep nations together. His years at sea had eaten away at his certainty. He had absorbed truths that are all but impossible to bear. He had strayed too far from the circle and was left to dance alone.
With the return of the men from the Balkan Wars a new wind began to blow, a whirlwind of courtships and romances. The returned soldiers desired the comfort of women. It was a time of weddings and pregnancies, the tribe making up for their dead. Mikhalis’ band was in demand. Rarely a week went by without a bride being paraded through the village to the groom’s house.
Then, like the Ionian squalls that erupt without warning, the winds changed. Men who had just married, or become fathers, talked of leaving the island again. They laid plans to set out for the countries they had returned from. They had forgotten the harsh struggles of previous sojourns. Afstralia was a country beyond the reach of war, they claimed, and riches were there for the picking. When their wounds healed they set off, farewelling their pregnant wives and infants with the promise of wealth and swift returns.
After each departure I felt more stranded. I received letters from Stratis. Kalgoorlie was an Eldorado, he wrote. The main street was lined with businesses run by Ithacans. In five years he would see Melita and his boys, Andreas and Manoli. He would return to the island a wealthy man. Meanwhile he would seize his chance. ‘Come and join us,’ he said. ‘Work awaits you. You will not be alone.’
My centre of gravity shifted from the summit to the bay. The world appeared different at sea level. The water was close. Enticing, yet forbidding. There were breezeless days when the seas were dead. When squalls erupted, the waters were hurled against boats moored by the quays. Fishermen hastened to fasten the ropes or hauled their vessels ashore. They leapt from deck to jetty and worked furiously to protect their boats. And when their work was done they retired to the coffee houses to sit out the storm.
I preferred days of fair winds, and the steady procession of fishermen making their way to sea and returning with their daily catch. Crews lowered their sails and guided their vessels to the waterfront. Dusk was a time of returns and departures, a changing of the guard. Day fishermen gave way to those who took their chances at night.
I inquired at the shipping offices in Vathy. I had made up my mind, but it was no longer easy to leave. Warships patrolled the seas. News reached us of blockades in the Bosporus. Trading routes were cut off. Our arid soils mocked us and our crops were stillborn. Children ran about bare-footed, in threadbare clothing. Destitution stalked the island. It was time to leave. Not even the danger of war could deter me.
It was Mikhalis who helped me on my way. The journeys to the Black Sea had long ceased. Mikhalis had adapted my father’s boat, and ferried cargo to and from mainland ports. I left in the northern spring of 1916.
When the time finally arrives, the parting is always abrupt. I left at the first cry of a newborn lamb. I left as the first rays of sun flooded the blue dome of St Marina. I left while the villagers were stirring, moving about their kitchens like sleepwalkers in search of light. I left with my face set, like a sail, waiting for wind. And I left alone, to avoid tearful farewells. On my back I carried a rucksack and violin.
I glanced back at the flights of stone steps that divided the village homes. For the final time I scanned the valley, the mountain terraces, the windmills on the heights. The eight sails lay dormant against the rising light. The sails are nets that trap the wind was the odd thought that reared in my mind.
I descended the path littered with mule droppings and bound by perimeter walls. I paused beside the ruins they call
Homer’s School and recalled the night Stratis and I sealed our pact. I moved between olive groves and vineyards, and chapels shadowed by cypress and oak. The summit vanished in the mist and for a moment my heart tightened. I quickened my steps on the steep descent to Frikes Bay.
I boarded Mikhalis’ boat and gazed at the wake as it moved out to sea. It churned with infinite possibilities. It hummed with the melody of movement and change. A journey that had begun with a descent was now progressing on an even keel. I walked to the foredeck and watched the bow part the water before me. I returned to the wake that streamed from the stern like the aftermath of a difficult birth.
I sailed in the wake of Stratis and my great uncles and their kin. Old Andreas Lekatsas had been the first man of Exogi to spend time in the Great Southern Land. He sailed the pre-Suez-Canal route by way of the Cape of Good Hope, a voyage of many months. He jumped ship in Melbourne in 1851, and joined the rush for gold. So the story goes, from mouth to mouth, from cafe to cafe, from story to myth.
Andreas’ nephew, Antonios, left in 1877; he was twenty-four years old. He began his ascent in the city of Melbourne sweeping kitchens, washing dishes, putting out rubbish, and waxing cafe floors. He polished the boards so hard and so long the floors began to glisten. Mountains of dust were transformed into bank notes. Within two decades he had amassed a small fortune, which he invested in coffee palaces and restaurants. So the story goes, from mouth to mouth, from story to myth.
Antonios’ younger brother, Marinos, voyaged in his sibling’s wake. A cabinet-maker and fiddler, he played the music and carved the instrument that conveyed it. Marinos joined his brother in Melbourne but he had visions of his own. He struck out for Tasmania. As he drew close he had the sensation he was coming home. He hired the most inventive architects of the day, and sat with them as they drafted plans based on his designs. He beheld the image of the grand Opera House of Zakynthos, and when the work was done, he sent home news cuttings of the gala opening.
The Princess Theatre in Launceston opened its doors on 1 September 1911, the first night of the southern spring. Giant flame arcs illuminated the outside walls. Every one of its 1800 seats was occupied. A symphony orchestra entertained the guests. Marinos was hailed as an entrepreneur of great energy and skill.
These were the legends that accompanied me as I set out. I did not want to look back. I was wary of what I might see, but like the biblical Lot I could not resist. Ithaca was fading from sight. The summit was the last to sink. Then the island was gone. I fought an impulse to jump overboard and swim back. No one had warned me of this.
With each kilometre my panic increased. I could not rid myself of the thought of my mother’s resignation, her silent reproach. The crew jostled with the sails and resorted to the engine when the winds died. Even though I knew them, they remained detached, doing their job. There was no going back.
The waterfront hotel, where I spent my first night in Patras, smelt of neglect. I slept in a room of strangers, on cots with sagging springs. The cries of seamen loading boats, and the revelry of sailors on shore leave, threaded in and out of my sleep. And I dreamt of the summit. I held the telescope to my eyes. A sea hawk flew into the circle and veered towards me, talons outstretched.
I wrenched myself clear, tumbled over the cliff, and flapped my hands to stem the fall. I searched for currents that would keep me aloft, and eased myself into flight. My eyes took in the northern peaks, the hamlets and harbours, escarpments and coves. I surveyed the entire island. It whirled about its axis until reduced to a single peak. Ithaca was sinking, the last peak fading, and I could not control my flight. I awoke to the blare of ships’ horns, and the late night commerce of the street. Never had I felt so alone.
Nights flowed into days and back into nights at sea, from Patras through the Corinth Canal, and from Piraeus to the Aegean, engines throbbing in the dark. I lay in the hold and listened to passengers stirring, speaking urgent gibberish in their sleep. Oil lamps caught the grimaces on their faces. The air was hot with unwashed bodies.
We sailed to the southern extremes of the Mediterranean. Egyptian sailing boats slipped unannounced between troopships and freighters. The gaping delta of the Nile yawned invitations to the unknown. I rested my eyes on its eroded banks and learnt that water is stronger than stone.
We disembarked in Port Said and searched for onward passage. Notices plastered against dusty windows proclaimed cheap fares to any destination, but passage was hard to obtain. I prowled the corridors of shipping offices, rode creaking lifts, waited in queues and pursued false leads. Boats to Australia in a time of war were rare.
I was overjoyed when, in the street, I saw Laertes, a seaman from Kioni. He confirmed the saying that in every port you will find a Thiak. We wandered the streets of the wealthy quarters and admired the porches of spacious homes. We gossiped in waterfront cafes to the smell of hashish drifting from back rooms. Port Said remained a city of small-time smugglers and traffickers, traders and perfumed whores; and the harbour, a hive of merchant fleets and converted liners weighed down with troops.
I moved into Laertes’ lodgings. He was looking for work on the cargo boats, while I continued my search for a ship to the south. I finally found passage on a Norwegian freighter. We sailed the Suez by night; the boat was blacked out for fear of attack. Out in the darkness I imagined troops moving, maps being re-drawn, millions dying as empires warred. By day I saw army camps, sand-hills of flaming white, and strings of camels and Bedouins clustered at Red Sea wharves. I conjured visions of monks and emaciated hermits meditating in Sinai Desert caves.
We drifted through the invisible portal that divides north from south, and there were days that I saw nothing beyond the imprint of the past. The view from the summit crystallised and assumed permanent shape: the limestone ridges curving over cliffs into solitary coves, and the sun, forever moving, spotlighting shepherd’s tracks, the lower hamlets, the silver flecks of an olive grove. And, as if awakening from a trance, I saw a dark cloud moving towards me.
Only when the cloud was directly above did I realise it was a flock of birds. Suddenly the birds descended on the boat in the hundreds. They perched in every crevice, on the masts and rigging, the portholes and decks. For one full day the birds remained, preening and chattering like excited children, and when they left, I followed the flying cloud and saw that we were approaching the west coast of the new land.
Deserted beaches stretched uninterrupted as far as the eye could see. The weight of the ocean surged into swells that broke on vast swathes of sand: the Ionian is free of such tides. I observed the breakers through the telescope my father had given me. I was adrift without past or future, and the faintest trace of war.
BOOK IV
Mentor’s manuscript
KALGOORLIE 1916
WATER is stronger than stone. Dreams are more potent than reason. The ocean batters in vain against desolate coasts. These were my thoughts as we approached the final port. An albatross glided across the bow. Fremantle Harbour was a delta where sea and river collide. The scent of burning eucalyptus mingled with the smell of bilge and brine.
Cries of farewell reverberated from a troop ship passing by. I ran my telescope over soldiers crowding the deck rails and riggings. They gazed at the retreating shore, as had I months earlier from the stern of Mikhalis’ boat.
I turned to those gathered on the quay where the departing ship had been moored. The uncertainty in the eyes of those on the troop ship making its way out to sea reflected the uncertainty in the eyes of those they were leaving behind. I swung between the crowds on the quay and the ship, as one by one they turned their backs and returned to their separate lives.
I focused the telescope on a second quay and saw a hospital ship edging towards its berth to the strains of a military band. Our passage was temporarily stalled as its gangplank was lowered. I saw the returning troops carried off on stretchers, descending in wheelchairs, leaning on crutches, stumbling on unsteady feet.
Stratis
was waiting as I left the customs office. He was not the Stratis I had slavishly followed as a child. His face was drawn; he walked with the stoop of a burdened man. When we embraced I felt the tightness in his body. He ushered me over wooden planks smudged with seagull droppings. I was seeking my way on firm land, shedding my past like a weathered skin.
We made our way past the crowd assembled by the hospital ship. The wounded were to be ferried to the barracks in South Terrace, Stratis pointed out. There were so many, some would be taken to a makeshift hospital on the Fremantle football oval.
I had witnessed a rare moment, a changing of the guard. The troop ship, ferrying the able-bodied to the European front, was out of sight, while the returning wounded were being ferried ashore. The entire world was at war. I saw it in the anxious faces of those straining to catch sight of a father, a husband, an injured brother. Their heroes had returned broken men.
For a moment I panicked. I wanted to run from the clamour of new arrivals, the sound of the foreign tongue. I envied the seamen who would soon be gone. I craved their anonymity. I longed to join them, and see the shore receding, the port disappearing, to remain within the coming and going, the never arriving. Out of that dark labyrinth we call memory, one voice arose: Old Niko chanting the name of an ancient port. Kalitbahir. Kalitbahir. I was locked in. There was no going back.
The windows of the London Cafe in Perth were boarded. Stratis glanced about warily as he unlocked the door. Broken chairs lay upturned against the walls. Fragments of glass that had eluded the broom glinted in the dull light. The shelves had been stripped bare, and the shop fixtures ripped out. A gutted cash register lay on the floor.
We made our way to the back room where a group of men were playing cards. I recognised Ithacans who had left the island over the years. We embraced and kissed each other on the cheeks. The men swamped me with questions about their families, festering feuds, disputes over village land.
