Sea of Many Returns

by Arnold Zable

  Last year it was a youth on Lefkada. He awoke to a day of spring perfection and left for the bay with his heart singing. He boarded a caique with his diving partner, and cast off in anticipation. He cut the engines in the strait and drifted at anchor. On the lower slopes he would have made out the village he called home. On the waterfront he would have seen the night fishermen unloading their haul.

  It was midday when he made the fatal dive. On shore the shopkeepers were closing the doors and shutters, preparing for the siesta. He adjusted his mask and snorkel and leapt from the boat clutching a spear gun. He held no fear for these waters. When he did not surface at the expected time his diving partner raised the alarm.

  When the news reached the village the screams of the young man’s parents shredded the skies. His mother stumbled through the streets tearing at her hair, beating her fists against her thighs. ‘He was so beautiful this last summer,’ his grandmother cried.

  ‘I am nothing but a dead man walking,’ his father intoned. ‘The sea has finished for me,’ he vowed. The young man’s body was retrieved by divers and laid out on the waterfront. His mask-like face retained the hint of a smile. Death, it seemed, had come as no surprise.

  One year later, the villagers gathered to commemorate the event. They set the table for the wedding guests and for the groom who would never be. They wept for the woman he would not impregnate and the children he would never sire. They ate and drank, and spoke of his lust for the sea, the fatal disease.

  Thalassomania, the affliction is called. Thalassa. Thalassa, the Sirens hum. If you have ventured too far down, do not be alarmed. Your body is transparent, weightless. Allow the water to take you. You are safe in its cool embrace. What better way is there of passing?

  ‘There have been times, under water,’ cousin Andonis has confided, ‘that I imagine I possess special powers. I dive deeper with great ease, and think I can hold my breath for hours. I am overcome by a wish to dissolve in the depths. Perhaps it is the memory of the womb that lures me, a lethal desire to return to my true home, a primal yearning.’

  Perhaps this is how Manoli should have died, deep within the waters of the Ionian, with a spear gun in his hand and the shores of Ithaca within reach. A smile on his face, and his body at repose, divested of the rage that would accompany him to the grave.

  I was ten in the summer of 1967, when we moved to Carrum, to the weatherboard house by the bay. Unpacked boxes and possessions littered the rooms and passage. Sun streamed in through the windows. Young boys, stripped to their shorts, dived from the highway bridge into the Patterson River. They clambered over the rails and leapt with their knees clutched to their chests, egged on by friends. They hit the water, swam ashore, scrambled up the embankment and returned to jump again. I watched them from the living-room window in awe of their daring.

  Never had I seen Manoli, my father, so animated. He paced the rooms, pausing to gaze through windows at vistas of sea, river and estuary. From the kitchen window could be seen the full reach of the peninsula, sweeping to the head of Port Phillip Bay. He had plans, he announced, surveying the rooms, talking aloud.

  He would gut the house, knock down walls, rip out the linoleum, and restore the floorboards. He would get rid of the ancient fittings and replace them with the brand new. He would abandon the building sites, where he worked as a carpenter for other men, and invest in his own concerns. Instead of confining himself to refitting shops, as he had in his few previous ventures, he would build blocks of flats, entire shopping centres. His ambition knew no bounds.

  And, in his spare time, he would build boats: cabin cruisers and dinghies, clinkers, single-sail sloops. He would design sleek hulls, ribbed with beech, teak or pine, and when he was done, he would moor them by the embankment that sloped down from the house. He would sail them on the bay equipped with the very best navigation aids, the latest engines, converted car motors with greater horsepower. He was, he declared, a man of the contemporary world.

  His mind was so fixed on his plans he did not see me in the shadows. I had learnt to keep quiet, to observe and stay out of his way. I kept my eyes on the boys leaping from the bridge with triumphant howls; and for a moment I allowed myself to think, perhaps we would be happy here.

  Soon after moving in, Manoli built a small jetty on the river below the house. Diagonally opposite, beyond the highway and railway bridges, stood a fire station. Despite its proximity it did not help old Mr Burton, three houses away. Burton set his bedroom alight when he fell asleep while smoking a pipe. I was awoken by the bells, quickly dressed, and ran outside to join the crowd. We watched, transfixed, as the firemen carried Mr Burton out. He did not return and the singed house remained boarded up.

  The fire station was hired out for functions. On party nights beetles hurtled around the dusty lamps over the entrance. I crept to the windows, drawn by cascades of laughter and the strains of the band. The guests danced waltzes and tangos, the pride of Erin and foxtrots. The light cast by the hall windows gave way to the dark. I imagined the goings on in the swamp where nocturnal creatures cruised the muddy waters in search of prey. I looked back at the sea: somewhere out there Manoli was spreading his nets.

  It would remain my most enduring image of him, Manoli motoring out to sea. He scurried down to the jetty at twilight carrying a change of clothes stuffed in a duffle bag. He dragged the nets down the embankment and hauled them aboard. He untied the ropes, allowed the boat to drift, started the engines, and advanced through the river mouth.

  Congregations of terns scattered from the rocks by the estuary. Seagulls screeched and swooped over a bucket of bait. I watched the boat’s steady progress from the veranda until it dissolved between sea and sky. Hours later I would wake, move to the bedroom window and know it was not a dream. Manoli was out there. I did not think of him as my father. For as long as I can remember he was a separate entity, someone apart.

  I remained by the window until the first train trundled over the railway bridge. Starlings roosting under the bridge were shrieking the discordant chorus of a newly awoken flock. I stole out to the veranda to watch Manoli’s return. It was the one time I could be certain his anger had been tamed; yet I kept my distance from the jetty, in case his mood suddenly changed.

  I followed his steady progress to the estuary. The boat battled the swell where the river’s flow met the surging tide. There was majesty in the boat’s passage through the turbulence, and a lumbering grace in Manoli’s movements as he stood by the stern, tiller in hand.

  Once through the entrance the prow cut through more placid waters, sending wavelets towards the banks. Nearing the jetty, he cut the engine and steered his craft towards its berth. The deck was flecked with blood. Manoli tied the boat to its moorings, heaved the nets ashore, and squatted beside them to disentangle the remnants of the catch.

  When he was done he dragged the nets up the banks, and carried buckets of fish to the house. His wellingtons left thick imprints in the mud. He walked with a swagger: he was a fisherman returning with his catch, and before the day ended Sophia would have gutted and fried them, and Manoli would have distributed the rest to friends.

  I had eyes only for the crabs. I stole down to the bank to free those trapped in the nets. ‘You are an idiot,’ Manoli said in disgust, when he passed by. ‘What do you think? In this world it’s eat or be eaten.’

  Manoli built boats in the backyard. There was always one moored by the banks, a boat-in-progress on wooden blocks, a third on the drawing boards, and yet another daring design taking shape in his mind. He studied boating journals and drove to the Mordialloc boat yards in search of new ideas.

  While the latest boat was being built Manoli tended the one in use. He serviced the engine and washed down the decks. He secured the tyres that cushioned the boat against the jetty and replaced the frayed ropes. He was not given to sentimentality. He allowed no overt sign of it, yet he named the boats Levantes. Maistros. Sirocco. Ionian winds.

  He built shelves in the garage t
hat became scattered with lines and hooks, reels of twine, containers of nails and screws, tins of varnish, paintbrushes, barometers, compasses, manuals, and paperback copies of the works of Karl Marx, seasoned with a fine patina of salt. ‘Read these works,’ he proclaimed. ‘That is all one needs to understand the ways of the world.’

  The trestle table-cum-desk was a jumble of pencils, rulers, erasers, sharpeners, set squares, lists of addresses, and scraps of paper covered with sketches of boats to come. The concrete floor was stacked with planks of timber, coils of rope, propellers and shafts, tins of fuel, dismantled motors, forty-four-gallon drums, tyres and winches, and stiff nets in misshapen piles. The grease-stained workbench was littered with wood-dust, engine parts, chisels and hammers, saws, sanders and planes, propped against each other, in disarray. The walls were bare except for a crayfish trap, inadvertently netted in the bay. It dangled like a hunting trophy from a nail hammered into a timber support.

  ‘I am not sewing doilies, moron,’ he exclaimed when Sophia complained about the mess. ‘Look what I have created. When I die I will leave much behind. What will you have to show for yourself?’

  Once, when I was certain Manoli was out, I stole into the garage and leafed through his designs. There were sketches of boats with stylish cabins, outboard motors, and plans for boats, I would one day learn, were modernised versions of Ionian caiques. There were notebooks scrawled with the addresses of suppliers, and fruit-crates stuffed with marine charts.

  I sat back on the sofa positioned beside a tiny window with a view of the sea. I had often seen Manoli through the garage door, sitting here reading, or lost in thought. I dozed off to the smell of varnish and sawdust, and the rhythm of waves breaking. When I awoke he was standing over the sofa. In the past it was the dark scowl that frightened me, and the odour of his rage. It could come at any time, a blackness skittering over his face, yet in this moment, there was something else.

  I had opened my eyes and caught him unawares. I saw the anguish of a man who wanted to reach out, but had long forgotten how. I can see Manoli’s look of despair to this day. In that moment he was a shy stranger, bewildered and inept. The divide could not be breached. We dared not speak for fear of what we would say. Or betray. We were locked from each other like monks vowed to silence. We averted our eyes to the tiny window, drawn by the welcome diversion of the tide.

  It rains and the river swells. Water spouts from open drains. Water infuses water. Rain beats upon the swamp. Rain floods the estuary and flows over the banks. Salt water collides with fresh water and swirls into the bay. Rain unites sea and sky, and Manoli is motoring out to sea. Rain cruises down his face. On the water he is lord and master of his home-built craft. He does as he pleases, and roams the bay all night. The water lifts and licks him, and washes the world clean.

  When the rain eases I unleash the dog, clamber down the embankment, and walk the path one kilometre upstream to the swamps. I have ventured into forbidden territory, but Manoli is out. The pointer sniffs the ground, picking up scents newly released by the rains. Ducks and egrets glide the channels between reeds and matted grass. Dragonflies hover motionless above the surface, then zigzag off in pursuit of prey. The swamps are speckled with birds foraging waters that have sprung to life. They probe the wetlands with their elongated beaks in rapid sewing-machine strikes.

  The pointer rushes in circles and barks furiously. She disappears and returns with a frog in her mouth. She releases it at my feet, and it instantly leaps out of sight. A network of logs forms makeshift bridges leading deeper into the swamps. I stand at the rim of more hazardous territory and dare not go on.

  The rain returns as a gentle patter, and when it thickens I hurry home. Sophia watches from the veranda as I scale the banks. I burst into the kitchen with the pointer at my heels. The dog shakes herself vigorously, splattering mud over the linoleum floor. Her wetness permeates the room.

  Manoli is out on the bay. He had studied the weather forecasts and noted the times of the tides before setting off. The winds are mild despite the rain. Sophia and I are anxious for his safety, but we cannot help being relieved that he will be away for the night.

  I wake at dawn to the urgent cackling of hens, and stuff the pillows against my ears. No matter how hard I try I cannot stifle the sounds. I venture out to the backyard. Manoli, dressed in paint-splattered overalls, is in the pen, running the hens down, strangling them one by one.

  I run back to the bedroom and bury myself under the blankets. When I wake, the house is full of cooking smells. The voice of a soprano can be heard from the radio over Sophia’s movements. She is preparing food for the busy week ahead. Four hens are soaking in water, and Sophia is plucking the fifth. In the backyard, the carcass of a sheep is impaled on a spit, discharging fat in anticipation of the summer guests.

  Uncle Cherry Ripe is the first to arrive. I wait for him on the highway bridge. The sun bounces of the duco of his restored Bentley in a blinding flash, heralding his coming long before he skids to a halt. Cherry Ripe brings with him the promise of better days and a glove box stuffed with white knights, violet crumbles and cherry ripe bars. ‘My holy trinity,’ he calls them. He is not my uncle by kin, but he was raised in Manoli’s village. Like so many Ithacans, he is known by his paratsoukli, his nickname.

  ‘Hop in my little bird,’ he says. The interior exudes the solidity of wood and leather, the chrome-plated hubcaps wink at passers-by. And Uncle Cherry Ripe, dressed in white linen trousers and summer shirt, oiled hair slicked back, is crooning Come with me to Blue Hawaii. He pulls up at a highway shop for flake and chips.

  When they are ready we continue our drive. Cherry Ripe swerves across the bridge, and brings the car to a halt by the foreshore. When we have eaten our fill we feed the scraps to seagulls. As soon as the first chips are thrown out, they swoop down in screeching droves. We observe them through the windscreen fighting over the spoils. When the gulls depart, Cherry Ripe steps out with a cloth and wipes the duco until it regains its shine. Everything about him shines: the windscreen, the leather upholstery, the chrome bumpers, and the foil wrappers of the cherry ripe bars that we devour for dessert. He sings roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer, as we drive back to the house.

  Next to arrive is the Gambler, in an ancient Chevrolet, a dilapidated beast that reeks of incense and dusty journeys on outback tracks. The battered body is covered in grime, and dangling from the rear vision mirror is a framed image of St Nicholas. The Gambler is slouched back on the seat, belly protruding. One hand grips the wheel, the other fiddles with a necklace of amber beads. St Nicholas swings as the Gambler hums Byzantine chants.

  He is ninety years old, so it is said. The car veers gently from gutter to white line, yet somehow remains under control. ‘I take my time,’ the Gambler declares. ‘Wherever I go, whatever I do, I move as if riding a swell. We come from the sea, and one day we will return to the sea. My friends, this is what I live for.’

  Aunt Penelope arrives by train and walks over the highway bridge in scarlet stilettos, silk stockings, a tight black skirt and white blouse. She clatters up the veranda steps trailing the scent of the Myer cosmetics department in which she works. After a quick greeting she disappears into the bedroom and re-emerges, freshly powdered and rouged, and wraps me in a perfumed embrace.

  Alexis the wrestler follows soon after. They say he had been a Greek national champion and represented his country in the Olympic Games. He is a massive man with a reddish face. His muscular build is sagging towards fat now that his fighting days are done. Alexis walks with stealthy steps, arms slightly akimbo, as if instinctively poised for a sudden attack. He sinks down on the couch, drops his guard and falls asleep with a grim smile.

  Mentor arrives mid-afternoon, alone. He nods a silent greeting, retires to the couch beside the dozing Alexis, lights a pipe and observes the company with a detached gaze. ‘Your mouse is fattening,’ he tells me. The pointer moves to his side and settles at his feet. Mentor bends over to stroke he
r, and within minutes the dog lies fully extended, asleep.

  All day they arrive, an assortment of distant cousins and aunts, uncles and godfathers, Ithacan crewmen on leave from boats in port, and relatives I have never seen. It does not matter; they come from the same island, sympatriotes nurtured in Ionian villages. They will return to their jobs in city restaurants, fish markets, cafes and fruit stalls, on factory floors and in infant businesses, after one week by the sea.

  At nightfall the company strolls over the bridge to the carnival on the opposite bank. I tag along from stall to stall, ride the carousels, aim ping-pong balls at gaping clowns’ mouths, and fire pellets at moving targets, while Uncle Cherry Ripe urges me on.

  The company returns and converges on the veranda to eat and talk. I have never seen Manoli so broad-hearted in his gestures, and so generous in the slabs of roast sheep, stuffed intestines, and chicken that flow from the kitchen in his massive hands. But his awkward manner, and the manic shrillness at the edge of his voice, keeps me tense and alert.

  Conversations flare and recede, and just as the silence is about to claim us, the Gambler lifts himself to his feet, expands his chest, and detaches his cigarette from his lips. He extends his arms in a dramatic gesture, and begins. His hooked nose and wisps of white hair are silhouetted in the veranda light. The jacket, waistcoat and bow tie he wears, no matter the time of day, or state of weather, are illumined by a faint glow. I am mesmerised by his fat hairy fingers.

  He had made a fortune, he tells us, and had travelled the land to practise his calling. He had followed his compatriots wherever they laboured and set up card games. Now he lives his final years as a wealthy man with rents flowing from his properties. He stands on the veranda, a man whose life has straddled two centuries, the seven oceans, one thousand and one ports, smoke-filled back rooms, and flings his stories at the night sky.