Digging at the Crossroads of Time

by Christos Morris

  Superstitions sprouted easily. Walking up the steep hill of Dacktilo, the priest and deacons arrived from Pano Elefsis, Kato Elefsis and Elefsis Port. They brandished crucifixes and burning incense to chase the evil spirits away. To them the voice of the devil spoke through the poems of Mavrokakis, awakening the dead.

  Rumours brought forth travellers in search of the hilltop poet. Some made the journey to Dacktilo by land over many mountains. Others came by sea, sailing around the island and into the calm Gulf of Korfos as the ancient Minoans had done over four thousand years before.

  With the coming of strangers, bewilderment beset Dacktilo. Why would anyone travel great distances, endure such hardship to hear the words of a crazy man? Fearing eventual ridicule and humiliation, a plot was born to take the life of Mavrokakis, to sacrifice him to God for the sake of all the others in the village.

  It happened late one evening in May 1886. Three men approached the Mavrokakis rooftop, finding the poet alone, singing to Oaxsa. It was there they burned some of his poems and took away his breath. It was believed they waited for the obscurity of darkness before hauling his body to the mountain, burying him where he belonged.

  As Manolis repeated the words, “You make me dizzy, my mountain Oaxsos, Oaxsa, seeing you as I do through your eyes,” he winked at Pharmacos. “Maybe you know this man.”

  Pharmacos smiled, “Maybe I do.”

  Manolis looked back as far as his neck would turn to see if Angalia was still listening. He whispered, “You should listen to your momma. Study your books. Besides, it’s dangerous up there.”

  Pharmacos smiled. Angalia stood and replaced her kerchief. “I don’t want my son to grow up to be like the rest of you!” Her aggravated voice trailed off as she walked inside. “Perdos, too, that good-for-nothing husband of mine. I work my fingers to the bone …”

  “What would you prefer?” Pharmacos turned to Manolis. “What would you prefer, I go to Spinalonga?”

  “Yes, of course. The lepers are gone now. Only the ghosts stay behind.” Manolis paused to scratch the stubble under his chin. “Those poor people with all that disease. You know, when they died on that little island, there was no place to bury them so they threw them down a hollow concrete tower. The bones are still piled there, all mixed up.” He shook his head in dismay. “I looked down there once. It was a bad thing to do. Bad death went into the soil. In the old days we used to hold our breath when passing the island by boat. It was a dangerous place then, but not like Oaxsa.” Manolis lifted one eyebrow.

  Pharmacos removed two oval sea-washed pebbles from his pocket, and with one hand attempting to cover them, displayed them on the table. “I found these special stones.”

  Manolis looked at them carefully. “Sea pebbles,” he said dismissively. “So what?”

  Pharmacos whispered, “I didn’t find them down here. I found them up there. They are ancient stones. Secret stones!”

  As Pharmacos was speaking, the fishermen arrived at Angalia’s, greeting one and all. “Yiasas. Yiasas. ”

  Pharmacos snatched the pebbles and put them in his pocket. Manolis leaned forward with a frown on his face and whispered, “Be careful, Pharmacos. When you try to touch the gods, you sometimes find the devil.”

  Each of the fishermen had brought a small wooden crate displaying the few fish they had caught. They placed them on the edge of the dusty road for the village shoppers to inspect.

  Kolikos proudly displayed his prize of the day. It was an eight-pound gummy shark that would fetch a fine price. He barked at Angalia to make some coffee and to quit looking so sad.

  “Ahhhh,” she griped. “How would you be if your son climbed that mountain every day instead of learning his books?”

  “Books? Books are for old men. He is young.” He turned to Pharmacos, scolding him quietly. “Why don’t you listen to your mother? What do you do up there, anyway? Dig with Steffanakis?”

  “I only watch.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes he asks my opinion.”

  “Your opinion?” said one fisherman. “The best known archaeologist in all of Crete and he asks your opinion?”

  The handsome young man was unperturbed by the swipe. “You’d be surprised. I see things. Sometimes I see things others cannot.”

  “Like what?” asked another.

  Pharmacos paused before speaking. The fishermen were all attentive, wondering what secrets were being uncovered up there, wondering if he had found the hidden tank of gold.

  He leaned forward toward them and whispered, “I see … the wind.”

  “You’re crazy like your father,” laughed one fisherman, flicking his hand at him. “The wind you cannot see.”

  Pharmacos boldly pressed his face close to the doubting fisherman. He smiled mischievously. “Anemos. Aerras. Breath of the ancient gods. It doesn’t make you crazy. It makes you free.”

  “What does Steffanakis really find up there?” asked a fisherman. “They say in the old days they found ninety-nine empty tanks, but there was one more hidden and it was filled with gold.”

  Kolikos dismissed the idea with the wave of one hand. “I think he found a big church up there. An ancient church. They always put them up there with a better view to God.”

  “Filled with gold, I bet.”

  Manolis Theepsos interjected. “Whatever he found, it will be important and serious. I’ve known Mimis Steffanakis since he was a boy. He is a serious man.”

  The old bishop nodded in silence.

  You make me dizzy, my mountain, Oaxsos, Oaxsa.

  Seeing you as I do through your eye.

  You watch the fishermen now out to sea,

  Where time slips silently

  Backward behind human memory.

  I touch some ancient face that smiles back,

  Like an old friend, remembering,

  Gripped by some sense we have met

  Before, another time, and I another man.

  You make me dizzy, my mountain, Oaxsa,

  Seeing, as I do, through your eye.

  Mavrokakis

  Circa 1880s

  Elefsis, Crete

  Saturday, May 24, 1980

  T

  he village of Dacktilo has changed little since the time of Mavrokakis. Old houses seem to hang onto a hilltop by sheer stubbornness. Fourteen coarse stone dwellings abut an unpaved path, doors facing each other, their backs to a changing world. Nearby, within earshot of a donkey’s bray, are other Elefsis villages: Pano (upper) Elefsis, Kato (lower) Elefsis and Elefsis Port.

  For centuries a slender peninsula that nearly encircled the lagoon-like Gulf of Korfos protected the fishing port. At its most slender point the isthmus had been severed to allow the sea to enter the gulf and small boats to pass through. The decapitated peninsula became a seven-kilometre island, a barrier protecting Elefsis from the curse of the heavy seas and winds. Behind it all, and proudly reaching toward the sky, is the watchful eye of Oaxsa.

  Within the small coastal villages surrounding Elefsis, an ancient story remains, passed down through the centuries. It is a story of the mountain and it tells of a hidden cave near its peak with sacred tunnels twisting deep into the earth. The cave has never been found, yet the story persists about what lies within.

  Some say the torrid winds on Oaxsa stand sentry to the life around the mountain. The ancient Earth Mother, Meterra, watches her children sprout and grow, and then at death, she draws them back to the mountain.

  She draws them back to its tunnels, its cave and crevices, or simply to a crossroad near the peak. Through the earth we are born, and in the end, it takes our final breath. We return to the place where we began, through the passage deep within the earth’s womb. This passage was the Holy of Holies frequented by Minoans while in life, though now seemingly sealed off to mortal modern man.

  Today this tale is challenged by disbelief and ridicule. It is corrupted by fantasies of a tomb of hidden gold treasure from the past. Yet some believe should anyone come upon this mountain conduit and t
ravel the length of it, many mysteries would unfold. The journey would lead them through the lava rivers of Akrotiri and into a place where past and present fuse into one.

  Since ancient times men have gone in search of the mysteries on Oaxsa. Strange disappearances have caused centuries of superstition and fear to fester. Today stories of frightening winds and the perils of her peak remain. Even now it is thought the mountain makes sane people crazy, causing some to leap without reason from her steepest face. A few have been thought to be triumphant in flight, being held up by the wind and transformed into birds, the singing perthekes. Yet failure has beset the dreamer, as many a carcass has been found rotting in a crevice, seeping back into the soil once again.

  Men of reason have long ago dismissed the strange tales of Oaxsa, calling them stories of lunatics and deceivers. To the mind ordered to order, steeped in dreamless certainty, the mountain is like any other. The past is not alive. There are no mysteries. There is no cave or conduit. For them, no music sings upon Oaxsa or whistles through the wind. There is no place where past and present dance. There is no colonnade of shimmering light waiting for them. There is no eternity.

  Yet sometimes in the darkness of their own suffocating silence, they may wonder at a sudden chill, that moment of fear when the winds press hard upon the skin. When an invisible touch of a hand awakens the sleeping soul, some may turn perchance it may reveal a face, a simple sign that they might follow.

  At certain moments the secrets of Oaxsa touch the souls of men. The wind sometimes descends with an awakening chill: a shard protrudes from the soil, a gift, a fragment of a message from the past. For time moves only forward, never back.

  Kolikos looked up to Oaxsa for a sign, watching clouds change shape as they sprinted past its peak. He believed all men of the sea were cursed with the temptations of the devil to exchange their souls for safe passage on the water and possibly good luck when fishing. He was certain one captain on the boats had made such a pact with the devil.

  From his chair at the taverna, he watched the huge frame of Demetra walking toward him from the wharf. She wore baggy trousers, a ragged purple sweater and a black kerchief to hold her grey hair. She was big as a Buddha, with hands the size of a large man’s.

  Those eyes of hers, he thought. He could see those eyes thirty metres away. The eyes of a hungry lion. Eyes that penetrated deeply into the hidden thoughts of men. Even the strongest of them was cautious of this power and silenced their tongue in her presence. That some called her the “Oracle of Elefsis” annoyed Kolikos. He thought he too was a seer, yet he was not thought to be her equal. Her happiness and laughter did not fool him. Inside her were secrets. Dark secrets. She lived in a cave and not a house. Was this not also the hole of snakes and demons?

  As a young woman she had not possessed these powers – this he knew. But they seemed to grow stronger as the years went by. He believed her dead husband, Hierophos, was the cause of this change. Demetra told him that Hierophos came back to her often, back from the dead. She found him in the emptiness of thin air. Only God or a devil could do that – and she was not a god in his eyes. When her husband died, she went to sea for the first time upon his boat. Kolikos was certain of one thing. When she went to sea now, she was not alone.

  Demetra arrived with her big friendly smile, greeting everyone. “What a beautiful morning,” she shouted, presenting both hands to the sky. “This will be a lucky day for someone.”

  “For you,” piped one of the fishermen. “Where are all you fish?”

  Demetra shrugged. “I gave them all to the church. Tomorrow is Pentecost. Father Dimitrios can give them to the poor. How could I keep them when I was given a morning like this?” She took a huge breath of fresh air and shouted, “This makes me want to dance in circles – and sing so loud they hear me in Lassithi!” She slapped the table with a masculine thump. “But I must go. Yiasas!” She turned to leave, singing an old mantinade.

  Kolikos shouted at her, “What does Steffanakis find up there?”

  Demetra turned with one eye raised suspiciously. The big woman walked back slowly, gazing at their eager eyes. They knew, of anyone in all of Crete, she would know the secrets of this very secretive man. They also knew, if she answered, it would be the truth. Her eyes scanned every fisherman, then fixed upon Kolikos.

  “He is digging up a very special Minoan temple. It all fell down and buried itself. There are many stones. Many pieces of pottery. Some bones. Everything has to be put back together.” She paused as they eagerly waited to hear more. Maybe she would tell them of a death mask of an ancient king, maybe of the last tank of hidden gold.

  “Is that all?” asked one.

  Demetra was slow to respond. “He found one more thing,” she said softly, “or maybe it found him. Who knows?”

  Every eye was sharply on her, every ear pricked in anticipation.

  “He found,” she said, her deep voice trailing to a whisper, “… abyssos.”

  The fishermen were silent. Sensing trouble, Bishop Kondros made the sign of the cross.

  Theepsos slapped his knee with glee. “I knew it was important!”

  After Demetra left, the fishermen sipped their coffee in silence. Angalia wiped a table, shaking her head. Someone queried, “What the hell is Demetra talking about?” The other fishermen said nothing. Many of them had sensed the meaning of abyssos. In a lifetime spent on an endless sea, eternity was always in their thoughts, both private and unspoken. At night, when the universe opened its jaw wide, the lure of wriggling lights filled them with awe. Some wondered if they cast a heavy hook into the night sky, might they catch what lies beyond and reel it in just once? But then what secrets of the darkness would be caught? At sea, temptations were distrusted. They sensed the sirens’ song. Among the brave fishermen, no words were ever spoken of the invisible abyssos. In their silence, fear and failure conspired.

  By late morning, the sky turned bright and the fishermen exchanged coffee for raki accompanied by a small plate of mazethes filled with olives, goats’ cheese, sliced tomato and cucumber.

  Their eyes grew wide and lips moistened when the widow, Ariadne, came near them. Her beauty was intoxicating, far more than ten carafes of raki. It was flawless; without measure. That she remained faithful to her dead husband, one of their compatriots, was a burden that filled their restless nights with dreams. As she carefully eyed the fish, the men, except for Kolikos, all grinned from ear to ear, shameless and ungraceful.

  Kolikos distanced himself by looking away and winding his old watch. What is there about hopeless desire that lifts the hopes of all men? To him it was embarrassing. He would deny her even a single glance. Yet in the centre of his watch he saw Ariadne’s face, the reflective movement of her body. He fidgeted for a cigarette.

  Each of them would sell their souls if Ariadne would choose from their crate of fish and not another. They would wrap it in their finest paper, neatly, and tie it with string. They would then bring it to her home where it would be prepared and cooked and eaten – and after that they would make passionate love with Ariadne and, in ecstasy, she would shout with every thrust: “Ohhh, your fish; your fish; your fish!” Such was the pleasure of idle dreams awakening to the harsh light of the sun. Ariadne did not stay long. She passed them and walked into Giorgos’ grocery store.

  By early afternoon their eyes grew weary and their lids began to sag. Longing for sleep, they welcomed the sight of the old widows in their black dresses whose predatory noses sensed the precise moment the cheap fish arrived.

  Nani Pandazizis shook his dice and glanced up to Oaxsa, seeing the familiar figure of a man walking slowly up the mountain. “Look! The fool with brains,” he said, pointing with his nose. Then he threw the dice hard. “He climbs that silly mountain again.”

  His brother-in-law squeezed Pandazizis’ arm to indicate the need for secrecy and whispered, “This time he finds something up there.”

  “Baaaah!”

  “I know. I heard the priest curse him for
something. I think he finds it and tells no one. The last buried tank filled with gold.”

  “He finds nothing,” said Pandazizis. “Just rocks and bones. Rocks and bones.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. What else do archaeologists do? They dig up only useless things.”

  On the Mountain Oaxsa

  Saturday, May 24, 1980

  A

  s the archaeologist vanished up the mountain, the peering eyes from the platea grew tired of watching him. Mimis stopped to collect the heavy walking stick he always left beyond the last olive grove. It rested on the buried bones of a partridge he had shot as a boy. It was so many years ago, but the gods had punished him with a vivid memory of the moment he pulled the trigger and the pellet from his uncle’s air rifle pierced the heart of the singing bird, killing it instantly. The bird had fallen beside a bush of thyme. Mimis ran to retrieve his first kill. To his surprise, a second partridge appeared to defend its lifeless twin. As the boy approached, the living partridge spread its wings toward him in an act of defiance. It did not fly away. Mimis crouched, and as his hand reached out to inspect the dead bird, the second bird quietly collapsed beside its mate and died.

  Young Mimis was struck with guilt and remorse. The eyes of the second partridge were open, looking at him. This handsome bird had not been shot. It had been mortally wounded by sorrow. It was Mimis’ first experience of shame. His chest grew tight, then numb. The boy buried the two birds and vowed he would never hunt again.