Suddenly—in the towns and villages you hear German, Italian, English, French, Italian, and especially this year, since Greece is a hot ticket—Hebrew. Four charter flights a day from Israel.
Suddenly—those Cretans who make their living from the tourist industry go mad trying to handle in one big week what is usually spread out over at least a month. The rental business rises like a high tide along the roadside from the town of Chania—cars, mopeds, bicycles, peddle boats, rooms, tours, whatever—and what is not for rent is for sale. Shops and restaurants that were shuttered and deserted last week are in full operation, and Zorba music fills the air all the way to town.
Opa!
Suddenly—there are lambs to slaughter and sweet breads to bake and clothes to buy. The churches and the monastery are decorated and everything that should be whitewashed is whitewashed—curbs, trees, walls, big rocks, and steps.
Between now and Paskha, the pace of life will intensify. Relatives are on their way already. The house must be cleaned. The garden must be tended. New clothes must be bought. Delight is the order of the season. And the only scandal is in not participating.
May no scandal be attached to my name!
Suddenly—it’s midnight and the bells ring and fireworks are lit off and the feast is on. Pilafi, horta, paidakia, kokoretsi, calitsunia, tsikoudia, wine, and fruita. Christos Anesti! Chronya Pollah! Eat! Eat! Eat!
And how would you be certain you had taken part?
If you wake late on Monday morning from satiated sleep to find your pillow wet from drool, because your body has been too enfeebled to move during the night.
If your bedroom smells like grilled meat, mown grass, charcoal smoke, and the vinegary vapor of village wine.
If your jeans and shirt on the floor are stained with blood, soot, grease, tomato pulp, chocolate, yogurt, and strawberries.
If the pockets of your jeans contain shards of crimson eggshells, balls of gold and silver foil, and half a candy rabbit.
If the face you see in the bathroom mirror is blotched florid orange and pink and red, and the end of your nose, your cheeks and ears, and the back of your hands are swollen and sunburned.
If your eyes are bloodshot from smoke and wine in excess.
If your head feels like a baked pineapple and your tongue seems too big for your mouth.
If your hands sting when the soap washes over the many small wire cuts you got from clumsily binding a small bleeding lamb’s corpse to the souvla, the long pronged steel turning rod.
If your wrists and elbows and shoulders ache from turning the souvla over the coals for three hours.
If your abdominal muscles hurt from laughing, and your stomach seems swollen as if you may never need to eat again.
If you cannot remember your real name, but you think it may be Yorgos or Demetrii or Kostas.
If the front door of your house is hung with a limp wreath of daisies, poppies, and wild rosemary.
If all the dishes you own and some you do not are stacked unwashed in the kitchen sink, and there are heaps of uneaten cookies and cheese pies and the cold charbroiled head of a lamb on the counter.
And if you feel awful, but you don’t really care, because you know why, and it is a wonderful awful, beyond all sense and reason.
Then you have strong evidence that you have survived Easter Sunday in Crete with friends; that you have helped dig the pit, spitted and cooked the lamb, eaten the wild greens, sopped up the oil with bread from a wood-fired oven, lay on old carpets in the green meadow under the almond trees, chased small children around the fields, drunk far more juice of the vine than hospitality required, and laughed and laughed and then laughed some more before falling asleep in the sun, and somehow finding your way home, to fling your clothes onto the floor and your body into your bed.
You have been Eastered to the max, Cretan style. Megalo Paskha!
You will have done your part.
No scandal will be attached to your name.
And despite how you might feel before at least three cups of black coffee on this late morning after, you will know that it is you who have died and been reborn—in the countryside of Crete—not far from the deep well of reckless delight.
If Jesus does come back some glorious Easter Sunday, it will be here.
So declare the Cretans.
And then—suddenly—it’s all over.
It is the Monday after Paskha—a day of recuperation for the Cretans and a day of return for the tourists. The ferries and charters haul most of the visitors away. Tomorrow the island eases back into a pace of sigah, sigah—slowly, slowly—from now till inevitable summer.
For all this fassaria—this general fuss and bother—ancient calmness remains. It is April. The blood-red poppies cover the hillsides here in this far end of western Crete. The monastery bells still mark the hour at six o’clock, followed by the baa-ing of the sheep trudging homeward along the road below my house at dusk, their bells binging and bonging as they go.
Small owls call as evening fades over the wine-dark sea and snow-capped mountains. A warm breeze wanders over from Africa and into the hills of Crete, spreading the usual perfume of orange blossoms along the shore. At dawn the fishermen will go out in small boats and cast their nets in the sea, as fishermen have done for thousands of years.
Wide awake in the deep silence and darkness of the post-Paskha night, I got up out of bed at three a.m. and went out on the porch to see if everything is all right.
For the time being, it is.
58
The Invincible
Ioannoulla
Tension pervades the atmosphere of my house this morning. I am uneasy. And my fellow housemates—bugs and snails and flies and spiders—seem likewise on edge. It is “Tuesday morning—condition red alert.” Why? Because heading our way up from the village, with a bow wave of energy before her, comes the Invincible Ioannoulla, the keeper of the house.
A small, stout, all-terrain vehicle of a Cretan woman in middle life. Once employed for ten years in Germany where she absorbed High German values of sanitation and order, she now manages the domestic part of my life in Crete. While the bugs and I may occupy the premises, it is she who sets the standard of harmony, and she who maintains the rightness of habitation.
Dirt and disarray are anathema to her. Untidiness is a mortal sin. She does not believe cleanliness is next to godliness—cleanliness IS godliness. Weekly she comes not to clean but to cleanse.
Ioannoulla does not walk from the village. She marches. As one on a mission. She huffs and puffs up the last fifty yards and then the stairs, throws greetings ahead of her like warnings, and goes straight to the brooms and mops without stopping. Any living thing that does not wish to be swept up or washed down had better clear out, for the tarnished shall be polished, the wrinkled shall be made straight, and the rough shall be made smooth. Since I do not wish to be included in any of those endeavors, I go sit out on the porch while she works.
I do appreciate her tool sensibilities. For example, Iounnoulla believes the brooms and mops should be first-quality and readily available, not hidden in a moldy dark closet somewhere. I once considered mounting a new broom and new mop crossed over the fireplace mantel as a sign of respect for her standards. At her insistence I bought a brand-new, fire-engine-red Siemens super duper vacuum cleaner that can suck the laces out of your shoes. I am not allowed to use it.
I also appreciate her notion that all the bedding and towels and small rugs shall be hauled out to hang in the fresh air every week. To lie in bed at night on sheets and pillows scoured by the sun of Crete in May is to have an easy slide into sweet dreams. But first I must loosen the sheets, which have been tucked into a tautness that would please a Marine Corps sergeant.
Sometimes she comes twice a week—because she knows I have had guests who have undone her work. This week there was a red rain, which is to say a storm front cycled across north Africa, picked up part of the Libyan desert, smeared it over Crete, and then poured wetn
ess down through it, leaving a fine thin film of rusty mud on everything. Without warning, like an ambulance corps, hearing sounds of a car crash, Ioannoulla arrived knowing I would be helpless in the face of this emergency.
“AFRICA!” she shouted, waving in all directions as she steamed up the hill. “KHADAFY KAPUT!” And she not only sucked up every tiny particle of dirt in the house with the “electriki scoopa” (vacuum cleaner) but also hosed down the atrium roof and polished all the leaves on the gardenia bush. That was yesterday. Today she has returned to do the more usual tasks.
She assumes I understand Greek. And sometimes I do. But at the speed she assaults me with language, I can only smile and agree. “Nai, Nai, Kyria Ioannoulla.” (Yes, yes, whatever you say, dear woman.)
God only knows what I have agreed to. Though I suspect she knows I haven’t a clue and only goes through the formality of asking me if it is OK for her to go ahead and do what she is going to do anyhow.
She treats me with the courtesy reserved for the feeble-minded and the inept. After all, I am a man, and even more deserving of pity—an American man. What would I know about keeping house?
I am, despite what she thinks, orderly by nature and have a strong aesthetic sense. I like flowers and fruit displayed around the house. I like having bones and stones from the beach sitting around in olive-wood bowls, and I like books out where I can see them and pick them up at random. I like my working papers and writing tools spread out on the desk for accessibility. And I like my shoes in a row by the door arranged by color. It is my style.
It is not the style of the Invincible Ioannoulla.
At the end of her weekly invasions the flowers are rearranged in one vase, as they should be; fruit is stored in the refrigerator, as it should be; the trash I’ve brought from the beach is moved to the back porch where it belongs; and books are properly shelved. All the papers spread out on my desk are neatly stacked together. My pens and pencils are put away in my desk drawer. And my shoes have been lined up according to weight, not color or utility.
We have not been able to reach an understanding or compromise on these matters. She seems to think that if she perseveres, I will learn from her example. This contest between single-mindedness and stubbornness has continued for several years and shows no sign of resolution.
Several times I have deliberately paid her more than she expects because she has delivered more than I require. She accepts the money. And then brings me a present the next time that costs more than the extra money.
I am now a Scotch drinker because of this habit of hers. I gave her twenty euro as an Easter present, and the next week she brought me a twenty-two-euro bottle of Scotch, such as she assumes a fine gentleman like me would drink. I hate Scotch. But she checks the bottle to see if I like her gift. Each week I have a little Scotch on the rocks at the end of her shift to show my appreciation.
I know. I could leave while she’s here. But then I would miss seeing her astonishing performance of remodeling my house in four hours. And I would miss her farewell ritual.
When she is finished, she walks through the house inspecting, and then says “Malesta” with a sigh, meaning, “There now, it’s the best I can do.” She hangs her apron on the back of the kitchen door and comes to wherever I am sitting. Silently she looks at me the way a small child will—directly, unselfconsciously, considering me carefully, paying thoughtful attention to what she is seeing. “Malesta,” she sighs. And with a smile that mixes affection, pity, and blessing, she pats my face, winks, and turns away homeward.
It’s not often in this life that I feel that someone has actually blessed me, but when the Invincible Ioannoulla says farewell, there is no doubt I am blessed. It’s her last act of taking care of the place in which I dwell—as if she looks at the dullness on the surface of my spirit and knows, as I do, that it always needs a bit of polish. And the wink suggests that shining is on her list of things to do next week.
59
Two Weeks Later
I write in a state of frazzled contentment. The Invincible Ioannoulla was here this morning. Usually I sit out on the porch while she works, but today the dear lady arrived early under a full head of steam, a bouquet of carnations in her hand, announcing that today was Megalo—the day of Big Cleaning, because it was either the last cleaning day of the month or a minor saint’s day, or the day after the Day of the Dead, or the house was in need of exorcism, or it was the Saturday before Pentecost, or all of that.
The “Why,” wasn’t clear, but the “What” was unambiguous.
The Megalo involves carting every loose item in the house out onto the porch—chairs, tables, rugs, and anything else except the beds. And this carting involves me, since the keeper of the house considers me to be a strong back with a weak-but-willing mind. The distinction between employer and employee gets vague here. And the work is done at her pace, not mine, which means a Cretan-style aerobic workout for me. Hup-hup-hup—up, down—in, out—hup-hup-hup.
Next comes a thorough sucking-up with the elektriki skoopa of all the smaller loose detritus, followed by a soapy scrubbing of all the terra cotta tile floors, then rinsing and mopping. She even brought the hose inside to wash down the walls of the atrium, which, fortunately, has a drain. While the floors dried, the Invincible Ioannoulla hauled the elektriki skoopa outside and vacuumed all the windowsills and doors. By now I was sitting way far out in the yard, not wishing to be vacuumed.
But I was in a fine mood through all this, because I had a surprise ready for the dear lady when the labor was done. In my freezer was Wonder-Working Raki Fuljumakis.
To explain: At the end of the wine grape crushing in the Mediterranean countries in late autumn, the must is left to ferment in barrels, and then distilled. A pure, clear, raw alcohol results. Italians call it grappa. The Turks call it raki. The Cretan version is tsikoudia, and they use it as a customary gesture of hospitality. A thimbleful is offered when a guest enters a Cretan home, and a thimbleful must again be downed on leaving.
This fiery little gut-bomb insures you are alert as company and alert on driving home. Many cultures flavor it, but the Cretans take it hard and clear and straight. It’s not something I like or drink much of, but no Cretan would fail to offer it or fail to drink it. Any tsikoudia with any flavor added—especially anise—becomes raki by definition. It is not Cretan.
Ah, but Wonder-Working Raki Fuljumakis is another matter. I filled a clear one-liter glass bottle half full of tsikoudia, added half a bottle of holy spring water brought from the monastery community of Mount Athos, and stirred in a portion of wildflower honey from the gorges of Sphakia. Finally I crushed a fresh mint leaf and rubbed it around the cork. After being shaken well to mix, Raki Fuljumakis, was the color of summer sunlight, and its smell purred: “Drink me, drink me.” I put it in the freezer to get it ice cold.
When Ioanoulla and I had put the house to right, and she had walked through saying, “Malesta, malesta,” I led her into the kitchen. Producing my frosty bottle of yellow light, I poured two tiny shot glasses half full, gave her one, and lifted mine in salute. “Raki Fuljumakis,” I said.
Quizzically, with unfeigned skeptical tolerance, she took a sip. Then she knocked it back and held out her empty glass for more. The whole sweaty ordeal of the day’s work was worth seeing the grin on her face. I winked. She winked. We had another glass. And patting me on the cheek as if I might have some good ideas after all, she went her way.
I treasure the memory of the grin on her face after her first taste. To be held in even mild esteem in the eyes of the Invincible Ioannoula reminded me of the times when I got a gold star from an admired teacher in primary school for good behavior.
The Invincible Ioanoulla came back to say good-bye this afternoon. I am leaving for America and will not return for several months. She is a widow lady now, and times are hard for her. My going away diminishes her income.
Still, she believes that good-byes must be well done, and so she came to bring a gift. One she could not
afford. A silver and amber komboloi—traditional beads—as a sign of respect.
“Thin berazi,” she said at my protest. “It doesn’t matter.” It is the way she feels and what she wishes to do. She touched her hand to her chest and then to mine—meaning: “It is the Cretan way—from the heart to the heart.”
“Malesta,” she said. And patting my face one last time, she walked away, leaving me frustratingly mute. My limited Greek could not tell her what I will tell you.
I suspect—no, I know—she has no idea of the impact she makes on my life by just being who she is and doing what needs to be done and doing it right. Furthermore, she would no doubt find it strange that I would tell you about her or that I think of her as a guardian angel.
But if you wonder sometimes why I seem happy and content here, you would never fully understand unless you knew the part played by The Invincible Ioannoulla. Bless her.
60
Physics
My house in Crete is on the grounds of the Orthodox Academy of Crete. Despite its name, the Academy has become a conference center for cross-cultural communication and ecumenical interaction. When I am here, I attend the meetings that interest me. Just in case you might think we’re sitting on our hands lost in theological Neverland, I list some of the lecture topics of this week’s international symposium of physicists:
“Konishi Anomalies and Exact Superpotential of Noncummutative Susy Field Theory” and “D-branes and SQCD in Non-critical Superstring Theory” and “Tachyon-Bubble Duality” and “Plasma-balls in Large N Gauge Theories” and “Structure Constants of Planar N = 4 Yang-Mills and String Bits” and “Three Dimensional Black Holes With Electric Fluxes.” Just to name a few.
What On Earth Have I Done? Page 12
