Tag: France

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Stories

Sleeper on the Bench

By Paul Mirabile

From Public Domain

Out on my usual morning walk. A lovely June morning, the air fresh, cool, the rising sun obscured by a belt of sleepy, moving cloudlets. The sun’s soft, mellow rays dried the dew on the large, leafy trees and blossoming flowers of Holland Park.

As always, I bent my steps towards my favourite bench where, I could sit alone and quiet, near to the ponds, yet far enough not to hear too many voices. The air smelt fragrant that particular morning. I hastened to start on my adventures with Dickens’ David Copperfield as I turned a sharp bend on the path that took me to the bench and the great, sprawling oak tree that homed the myriad rooks and scurrying squirrels. I halted. A seedy-looking man was slowly sitting up on my bench! I had never found someone occupying my bench before. He was scratching an unshaven face and an uncombed head of black, curly hair.

Snapping out of my astonishment, I boldly went up to him. “Sir, have you been sleeping on this bench?”

Hardly looking at me, he softly replied, “In fact I have, my good man. And I will add, I enjoyed a very quiet and relaxed sleep. Not a soul in the park at two in the morning, not even the squeaking of a squirrel.” He said all this with considerable aplomb.

“Well, I’m very happy to hear that. Of course you shall be leaving soon?”

“Not that soon, I’m afraid. When I sleep out, which is almost always, I arrive here in Holland Park at 2pm. and leave at three in the afternoon, sometimes a bit later.”

I bit my lip. “What do you, eye little girls with bad intent?”

“I should think not — that is very uncouth.”

“ Spit out pieces of your broken luck?”

“Hardly. My luck has remained intact, I’m proud to say.”

“Warm your feet in the sun?”

“They keep very warm in this season, even with my shoes off.”

The bench-sleeper took out a cigarette from a torn shirt pocket, lit it, then smeared his shabby clothes with greasy fingers. “Want a smoke?”

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”

“May I ask you why you have chosen this particular bench to sleep on?” I resumed, as he puffed away, staring blankly into space. “This is my reading bench, sir. It has been for over two years. I come almost every morning to have a good read before breakfasting at the Duck or Grouse across the road.”

“Ah ! The Duck or Grouse, I know it well. The barmaid is an acquaintance of my wife.”

“You have a wife?”

“Yes, and two children. Does that shock you?” Before I could answer he pointed a slender finger at my book: “A rather dreary read in the morning, no? I mean, why not something more droll like David Lodge or Oscar Wilde?”

“I prefer Dickens if you don’t mind,” I responded, taken aback by the man’s impertinence. The impertinent man yawned, took a bright, red apple from his trouser pocket and began munching on it.

“Sorry to have disrupted your morning reading, old chap, but oftentimes in life we are confronted by unforeseen events or encounters contrary to our habits. The question is: Should we disregard the event or investigate the meaning behind it? Why on this particular morning, on this particular bench have you been confronted by someone who has hindered your daily morning ritual? Is it accidental or providential? Please, sit down.”  I did unthinkingly sit down and watched him blow blue smoke rings into the still air. I will admit that I was a bit awed by him.

He went on calmly: “Does my appearance really offend you, cause you any discomfiture? Retard your reading of Dickens, who I must say, I have never really taken a liking to?”

“Oh, so now you insult my choice of reading?” I fumed.

“I meant no insult, sir, only a reminder you that there are morning readings, afternoon readings, evening and night readings. And I’m sorry to inform you that Dickens is not a morning reading, especially David Copperfield.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you are to remain seated on this, my bench, then you will be subjected to my perusal of David Copperfield; and whether it pleases you or not will not change my habit of doing so.” My bold affirmation seemed not to disturb the blighter’s rings of smoke that sailed lightly up into the broad leaves of the oak tree.

He wrinkled his nose: “Habits are terrible enemies.”

“Are they?”

“Yes, that’s why I oftentimes change a bench … even a park: St James is lovely with its lake. Richmond, Finsbury and Circus Gardens are very pleasant, too … You see, I despise habits, they instil an implacable rigor mortis.”

I ignored him and frowned: “So, you believe I’m a silly, old dolt because I read David Copperfield every morning on the same bench?”

“Of course not,” he responded quickly, tying the laces of his heelless shoes. “I simply wished to make clear to you on this lovely morning that a stranger has sat on ‘your’ bench, and that you have yet to ask him whether he is a beggar or not!”

The bench-sleeper’s remark put so point blank did indeed pique my curiosity, so I took up his defiance: “Are you not a beggar then?”

“Have I asked for money?” was his snappy reply.

“No … not yet, anyway.”

“Nor will I. So what are your deductions?” He peered at me with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

“That you are not begging for money and that you have given me the occasion to snap my habit by engaging in conversation with you.”

“You have expressed it wonderfully!” he exclaimed.

“In that case, why do you sleep out on park benches, when you said that you have a wife and children, and you have no need of money?”

He shook the dew out of his hair. “Is there anything ambiguous or incongruous about that?” he countered.

“I think there is! I have a wife and a home, and at night I sleep in my home, not on park benches.”

“And children?” 

I sat back. “No, in fact we have no children.”

He took out another cigarette. “ So?”

“So what?”

“Oh, nothing. My children often visit me in the parks when not at school, and my wife, when she’s not working.”

“I can’t believe all this!” I stuttered.

“Why not ? Have you something against a gesture so innocent, so insignificant than a man who sleeps on park benches, who is visited by his dear family, when, in fact, he could sleep in a lovely, soft bed next to his charming wife? Let us say that park benches have become my second residence.”

I gasped at that last remark mentioned so candidly. I changed the subject: “Tell me then, what do you do until two or three o’clock on this bench? You have no book to read.”

He chuckled. “My book lies outside written pages. My readings are people whom I observe, the flowers that I smell, the singing birds or gambolling squirrels that I hear. The conversations I have with many a good person, like yourself. I do read books — just the other day I found a copy of Lawrence’s The Rainbow in the trash bin. Can you imagine someone throwing away a classic of that sort?”

“Yes, that is a crime. So your days seem to pass by splendidly, a full agenda, if I may say so without irony.”

“You may say exactly that, my good man.” He stretched his limbs, took another cigarette and smoked dreamily, peering into the thick leafy foliage of the oak tree. Songbirds had been accompanying his well-stated sentences for some time now; they seemed to punctuate them, rhythmically. The manner in which he smoked his cigarette mystified me. There was a touch of delicacy, elegance, even refinement in his gestures. His speech, too, prompted me to think that he was no ordinary tramp.

He pointed to the sun: “When did you say you breakfast at the Duck or Grouse?”

“At ten o’clock.”

“Judging by the sun, it must be very close to ten.”

I glanced at my watch. “How right you are!” I said, stunned by the accurate time-telling of this unusual man.

“I’m afraid I have prevented you from reading one sentence of Dickens.”

“No bother ; I have many mornings to do so … unless …”

“Unless you find me lying or seated here every day ? Not to worry; as I said, I change benches and parks quite regularly. But who knows, we may meet again in different circumstances.” And he smiled while his eyes shone a roguishness that confounded me.

“Right!” I returned. “Perhaps we shall meet again.” I stood up to leave.

“Bon appetit,” he called out as I wended my way to the front gate.

Finishing my breakfast, I hurried home eager to share that odd encounter with my wife, at that moment busy with her morning gardening. “You’ll never know how I spent my morning, dear.”

“Reading your book, I suppose, as you always do,” my wife replied tritely without looking up, pulling out the weeds from the borders of coneflowers, forget-me-nots, asters and chrysanthemums below the bay window of our newly bought duplex.

“Not at all,” I responded. “I had a very strange conversation with a man who sleeps on park benches every night, and sits on them until three in the afternoon.”

She stood and eyed me strangely. “Talking to beggars, hey? How much did he wrest from you?”

“He wasn’t a beggar Helen. He simply sleeps and sits on park benches. In fact, he had a refined way of smoking his cigarette. Very well-spoken, too.”

She continued to stare at me without a word. “He even has a wife and children who visit him in the parks.”

“Does he ? Well I’ll be damned if he wasn’t putting you on, Marvin. Do you think I’d visit you in a park, sleeping on a bloody bench?” I smiled weakly. “He’s a smooth talker, that one is. Be careful, he might put ideas in your head, ”she concluded and attended to her peonies and snapdragons.

I felt odd and asked, “How about a restaurant tonight, dear? I’ve had a handsome pay rise, you know. Let’s dine at the Galvin La Chapelle.”

Helen jumped up like a Jack-out- of-the-Box. “Are you mad? I think that beggar or bench-sleeper got the better of you. The Galvin La Chapelle is the most expensive restaurant in London … eighty or ninety quid a menu!”

“Yes, I know. But I really feel like having a wonderful meal. After all, it’s only money…”

My wife went back to her edging and weeding.

So that night, dressed in our best clothes, we stepped under the chapelled vaults of the Galvin La Chapelle in Spitalfields, whose French cuisine and romantic atmosphere knew no rival in London, perhaps even in the whole of England. We were seated at our reserved table for two in the middle of the enormous dining hall, where we could admire the polished marble pillars supporting the stone ceiling, the timbered vaults and the arched windows. We both felt so paltry surrounded by such grandiose mediaeval decor.

“Such a posh restaurant, I’ve never seen such lovely architecture and decoration. And feel this tablecloth, it wasn’t bought at Primark,” Helen remarked blissfully, passing her rough, garden-versed fingers over the silken cloth after having been seated in a red-upholstered chair by a charming young waiter.

“I knew you’d like it, darling.” I beamed, thoroughly delighted at my wife’s first impressions. “You deserve it, haven’t we’ve worked hard: first the duplex then the car?” The Maître d’Hôtel[1] greeted them in French, then with much studied decorum, lay two menus on the table in the middle of which had been placed a vase of intoxicating tuberoses whose fragrance almost caused Helen to faint in ecstasy. Marvin ordered cocktails.

Suddenly his face turned white as a ghost. Helen, snapping out of her ecstatic state, searched the sudden whiteness for a reason: “Marvin … Marvin, are you alright ? Is it the flowers or the prices on the menu that have turned your face into stone ? I told you this place was dear. We’re not at MacDonald’s, you know …”

Marvin struggled to speak: “No … no … it’s not the menu, dear.” He turned to observe the Maître d’Hôtel presently leaning on the counter of the cocktail bar. He was attired in the most striking satin canvas double-breasted tuxedo with a black, silk bow tie whose tips brushed lightly against the red-laced lining of his vest. His tailored trousers grazed daintily a pair of Crockette and Jones shoes, the dearest in London. There he leaned on his right elbow, chatting up the barmaid. With the most refined gesture, he took out a cigarette from a gold-plaited case and lit it.

Marvin gasped: “It’s him! It’s him, Helen!”

“What are you on about?”

“The head-waiter talking to the waitress at the bar…It’s the bench-sleeper in the park. I’m sure of it.”

Helen sat back, a bit ruffled at her husband’s outlandish outbursts. The young waiter brought the hors d’oeuvres[2]: duck liver royal and buffalo milk panna cotta. As soon as the waiter had served them: “Are you daft!” she whispered so as not to be heard by two couples who had just been seated near to them. “Stop this nonsense, Marvin. Control yourself. Don’t forget where we are. How can a tramp on a park bench be the head waiter of the most expensive restaurant in London?” 

“But the way he smokes his cigarette…it’s exactly like the beggar’s! And his grey eyes, those glazed, blurry, grey eyes are his. Helen I can’t believe it!”

“Then don’t believe it because it can’t be him. Calm down and eat your duck liver. Look, he’s coming to take down our main dish, which because of your foolishness, we haven’t chosen yet.”

The stately Maître d’Hôtel glided over, pad in hand. Marvin, red as a lobster, buried his face in the menu. Helen scanned hers, marvelling at the names.

“Let me suggest the crab ravioli,” His soft voice sailed in between them. A voice very familiar to Marvin.

“That sounds lovely,” Helen said, staring impatiently at her husband who was hiding his face behind the menu. “With a lot of ricotta cheese, please. I’ll also order a free range aged duck sauce à l’orange. And you darling, what will it be?” she added, barely disguising her anger.

“I shall have the Iberico pork with chimichurri sauce, please,” Marvin ordered, peering over his menu at the head waiter.

“Of course, sir, we serve the finest French cuisine in England ; une cuisine exquisite!”

“How about some wine, dear?” Helen interrupted, peevishly.

The Maître d’Hôtel suggested: “An Aloxe-Corton Latour red wine goes well with pork. As to the crab, why not a carafe of Chardonnay?”  Helen and Marvin acquiesced by simply nodding their heads. “If I’m not mistaken, this is your first time here? Perfect. Then permit me to offer you, on the house, our burnt honey custard tart for dessert. It simply melts in your mouth.” The first-comers wreathed in smiles, albeit Marvin’s somewhat withered, nodded again in ostentatious gratitude. The Mâitre d’Hôtel glided off across the stone-paved floor with velvet steps.

Marvin leaned over the table, his nose ruffling the tuberoses. “Helen, I’m telling you it’s him. I’m going over there to settle this mystery once and for all. I know he recognised me, that’s why he offered that dessert to us.”

“Don’t be rude, Marvin. I shan’t be embarrassed because of your ill-behaviour.  That beggar has got to your head. Sip your cocktail, why are you ruining such a lovely evening, especially one that will cost you over two hundred quid?” Helen bit her lip.

“But dear, I shan’t embarrass you ; I’ll just casually stroll over to the fellow and hint at David Copperfield. He’ll get the message. He’ll know I’m on to him.”

“What do you mean ‘on to him’ ? He’s not a criminal! Stop this immediately or I’ll leave you eating your two-hundred pound meal alone!” With those stern words that brooked no rebuke, the affair appeared settled …

Marvin, however, was not to be foiled …

He stood up. Gathering courage, he made a bee-line for the cocktail bar where the Maître d’Hôtel was serving himself a drink. Marvin in a low but firm voice said: “Sir, I believe we have met elsewhere.”

Being much taller than Marvin, the Maître d’Hôtel bent over him, drawing closer. He placed a comradely hand on his shoulder : “My good man, how observant you are! My disguise has not fooled you for a moment. But please, look at your lovely wife,” and he sighed. “She’s almost in tears, worrying over your stubbornness to know the truth. The truth? Of what? About a sleeper on a park bench, one who harbours a certain disdain for Dickens in the mornings? If I were to reveal the mystery of our morning’s encounter, would you please return to your table and enjoy the meal with your wife.”

Marvin remained speechless, although he did scoop out a handful of cashew nuts from a porcelain dish on the cocktail bar counter.

“You see,” the head waiter continued philosophically, “here in this restaurant I play the role of a Maître d’Hôtel. I wear the weeds and mask of social bearing, parade about this remarkable dining room with aristocratic ease. I follow the rigid rules of proper etiquette. Where we met and spoke this morning is my breath of fresh air, my dwelling of unconfined freedom. There I dispose my mask, divest my constraining costume and don the clothes and air of a bird that has flown out of its cage. Here inside, I’m an actor. There, outside, a spectator no longer on stage constrained to act, but react to those whom I observe. And that my good man is the essence of freedom. In the parks, I regain a sense of reality by observing the simplicity of Nature, the grass beneath my feet, the sun, moon and stars above my head. The trees and the songbirds. In the restaurant, albeit it be the finest in England, I merely act, opined as a social asset, as a means to cater to people’s needs for costly pleasures, and of course to my own and those of my family’s, although mine and theirs are far from costly. Look, I shouldn’t be smoking this, but it is the only pleasure, the only soupçon of outside freedom that I can afford myself here.”

Marvin, awed by this avowal, said nothing. The Maître d’Hôtel concluded: “Now hurry back to your charming wife who has been impatiently waiting for your return. I do believe your main course will be promptly served. But let me say this, please do not disclose the reason for my bench-sleeping activities. That will be our little secret, one only between us. Look, your wife appears so upset, why subject her to trivialities? Discretion, my good man. Discretion. Put her at ease and enjoy your meal.” The Maître d’Hôtel causually strolled to a nearby table, smiling.

Marvin shuffled to his table, where indeed Helen was fuming. “Well ! Has he called the ambulance to have you packed off to Bedlam?”

Marvin winced. The irony of her remark cut deep into his emotions. He appeared lost in thought: “No … We had a smashing conversation, in fact. He’s quite a decent chap, well-read on Dickens, too.”

“Good, then let us get on with this wonderful meal. Cheers darling, and thank you, the wine is heavenly and the crab, well, what can I say?” Helen raised her glass: “To us … and Dickens!”

[1]        Head-Waiter.

[2]        ‘Starters’.

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Categories
Poetry

Your Light will Break

       By John Swain

YOUR LIGHT WILL BREAK 

Then your light will break
the amber hive
upon the tree
across the path
of sky in the flowering vines,
you remain in awakening,
powdered stones shimmer
honeyed to drink
through the beaming water,
light fires around the oil jar,
I tense a canvas sheet
to refuge
the mystery of your solitude,
we unfurl the shelter door,
we watch the burnt sky turn back
into the infinite sun.
From Public Domain

John Swain lives in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France.  His most recent chapbook, The Daymark, was published by the Origami Poems Project.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
Stories

Ali the Dervish

By Paul Mirabile

Whirling Dervishes, painting by Jean Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1737). From Public Domain

In 1976, I bought a small country cottage very pleasantly located near the town of Sheffield at Dronfield in South Yorkshire from an elderly woman who informed me she that had travelled quite extensively throughout Asia in the nineteen twenties and thirties before settling down here. She never married. The learned woman left no forwarding address.

Settling in took much time and energy because of my abundant belongings. At last, one rainy afternoon having nothing to do, I climbed the shaky stairway that led to the garret. The door had been left ajar. Inside the low-ceiling, ill-lite space, there was nothing but a large chest placed in the middle. The lid lay aslant. Its hinges were broken. 

Curious about its contents, I began rummaging through the numerous newspaper and magazine clippings, booklets, letters and other documents. A particular envelop caught my eye because the red wax seal had been broken. Wax-sealed letters are very out-dated these days. When I opened the envelop I understood why it was sealed. A seven-page letter had been written in fine, elegant script, by Lady Sheil, dated 1869. Lady Sheil was quite a prominent woman in her time[1] . This indeed was a remarkable find. It baffled me why the former proprietor would leave in a chest of documents a letter of such archival interest. Since there was little light in the garret, I took the letter downstairs to read it. Unfortunately there was no addressee, so I assumed it was sent to the former proprietor. I must confess that a feeling of guilt touched me when I began my reading. Luckily I overcame this sensation because the contents of the letter proved extraordinary …

Lady Sheil details a very peculiar adventure of an Englishman who named himself Ali the Dervish -or as she spelt it, Deervish — who had undertaken a voyage to ‘Balochestan, Persia’[2]. As I read through her letter, I came to realise that the Englishman had abandoned his British ways entirely, adopting those of the semi-nomad Balochi. To such an extent was his assimilation that he even married a Balochi woman, something utterly unthinkable at that time — in the year 1856. Why Lady Sheil would write a long letter about this chap to an unknown reader or readers heightened my curiosity.

I began investigations at the Sheffield library and found Lady Sheil’s Glimpses of Persian[3] though I found nothing at all about Ali the Dervish. Lady Sheil mentioned something about his diary but nothing substantial came of this. Be that as it may, the letter fascinated me by its mysterious allusions and ellipses, especially concerning this unusual identity change. Not a simple task for a European in the nineteenth century, or even in our century for that matter. This Ali even outdid Sir Richard Burton’s bursts of outlandish impersonation …

Examining the letter carefully, I felt a strange, slight tremor goading me to do justice to this eccentric Ali. Something unsaid in the sentences urged me to read between them, to scrutinize the margins and the paragraph indents as if Lady Sheil had deliberately left out parts of her narrative for her reader to fill in those blank, yellowing spaces.

I picked up my pen, imagining myself to be both Lady Sheil and Ali the dervish, and began filling in the those blanks, writing in the gaps, the lacuna, the untold events and details so to speak. Indeed, I had convinced myself that the letter had been destined for me. And this resolution was enough for me to divulge the mystery of Ali …

Ali, whose English-born name was left unknown, had had the best of aristocratic educations in the fine arts, especially languages. He was fluent in Hindustani, Persian, Pashtun and Turkish, besides having mastered four or five European languages, including Hungarian. This was quite a linguistic feat, second only to Richard Burton whom, by the way, Ali had the occasion to meet in Lahore. A meeting which lasted two or three weeks according to a friend of Burton’s memoirs. Little, however, is reported about their relationship.

Prior to Ali’s arrival in India and that fortuitous encounter with Burton, he apparently had led a rather lukewarm existence in England, and this in spite of his family wealth, or perhaps because of it. His accumulation of capital was analogous to his successive accumulations of prolonged bouts of depression. They left him utterly exhausted. How and when he left England is not written in the letter, although he probably reached India by ship, then on horseback or foot into Northwestern India, accompanied often by erring minstrels and story-tellers. From whom Ali learned the art of dancing, chanting and story-telling. It was not a question of imitating these rituals and customs. Ali had integrated them as if they had been part of some distant, latent self that required jolts of recollection to surge up from the depths of the unconscious. In fact, Burton was quite taken aback by Ali’s very ‘unEnglish’ appearance. His manner of speaking English, too, possessed a curious twist of Persian and Hindustani syntax — a ring of their tonal stress.

To Ali’s pleasant surprise, he no longer suffered from bouts of violent depressions. The former Englishman on leaving Burton, perhaps in 1849, rid himself of paper money, donating it to missionaries, then rode off into the verdant valleys of North-western India towards Afghanistan carrying only the clothes on his back, two gourds of fresh water, several loaves of acorn-bread and a pouch of Arabic gum. Ali carried no weapon.

Ali’s sound knowledge of Hindustani, Pashtun and Persian offered him unparallel glimpses of these undomesticated lands. Lands of shifting desert sands whose rising heat conjured in the distance illusions of ravishing oases and sparkling cascades off tree-laden crags. Ali had been warned about these deceitful mirages (by Burton?) whose marvellous vision had been the death of many a brave adventurer.

He kept to the clayey track, accepting food and board from the hospitable villagers or sleeping under the silver stars on his woven kilim-saddle cloth. He rode days or nights penetrating landscapes of indescribable beauty, of terrifying singularity, of unbearable heat in the day and equally freezing nights. At one point in his wanderings, Ali, slumbering on his horse due to the rising heat and lack of food, looked up to discover a gigantic Buddha hewn into a tuft-like cliff. A small stream ran in front of the lithic niche along which flourished many date trees. There the Buddha stood, calm, reposed, sedentary, encased in his stone casket, home to a myriad birds who had made their nests on his rounded shoulders and shaven head. Ali jumped off his horse, filled his gourds with clean water, scouted about for fresh dates. With one last look at the towering Enlightened One he set off towards Persia, filled with equivocal sensations. He felt that his nomad days would soon be numbered …

A month or two passed. Now villagers tilling their fields or collecting wood no longer greeted or spoke Pashtun to him, but in Dehwari or Persian. He welcomed this language shift. Ali felt more at ease in Persian, albeit it be the Dehwari dialect, which he had learnt from one or two erring Zarathustrian talebearers in India. By then his uncombed beard touched his chest and his hair his shoulders. In one village he traded his khaki-coloured shorts for a shalwar[4] and his boots for goat-skin sandals. In another his Safari sun hat for a turban and his heavy flax shirt for a long, cotton tunic. Whenever he met tillers or merchants they would greet him with the customary ‘hoş amati’[5]. By their pronunciation and vocabulary Ali knew he was travelling southwards into Balochestan. Temperatures rose and rose — 37° C … 42° C. His horse trotted slower and slower. Her rider drooped soporifically over her mane. Ali no longer calculated his wanderings in farsakhs[6] but by the risings and settings of the sun …

Notwithstanding these discomfitures, the persevering Ali carried on. To his delight the track widened, hospitable shepherds driving before them their herds of sheep or goats offered the solitary traveller the warmth of their camp-fires, goat’s milk, cheese and acorn-bread. Caravans of transhumance nomads pressing towards the high plateaus nodded to him. The stony-faced herdsmen chanted in their own language which translated means —

 A breath of mountain breeze,
A breath of wind from the Sea,
In the middle,
We trudge
The pilgrims of the fountain…

Then they called after their huge, savage dogs. Ali seized upon that admirable chant and intoned it to himself or aloud …

One sparkling, azure day, Ali, road-weary, alighted from his horse in a large settlement of tents, called Sa’idi. There both Persian and Dehwari were spoken, judging from the scores of people who came to greet him. It was a charming settlement, surrounded by fields of red poppies, iris, bluer than the blue of the sky, crown imperials whose orange tints glowed like lit candles, and tulips. Horses, sheep and goats dotted the terraced rows of poppies on the hills and skirts of the low-laying piebald mountains, motionless. Ali, both dazzled and comforted by the undulating kaleidoscope colours decided to halt for the night in this welcoming settlement to rest his fatigued physical and mental state and his horse.

When he asked for the elder of the settlement, he was directed to a very large white tent. In fact, since his arrival the snowy-bearded elder had been eyeing the stranger askance. He threw open the flap of his tent and greeted him in Persian as custom would have it, inviting his visitor inside for tea. Sipping their respective glasses of sugared tea, the snowy-bearded elder’s deep-set black eyes peered into those hazel-brown of Ali’s. Though he was pleased to meet this curious traveller, he was confused about his identity. Finally he put the question point blank to his sipping visitor: “Are you Persian?”  

Ali nodded neither yes nor no. His ambiguous nod set off the string of events that followed. events that transformed the already transforming Ali into a rather ambiguous Other …

The snowy-bearded elder had read that ambiguous nod as a sign of belonging. Ali’s sun-mat complexion, his extraordinary command of both Persian and Dehwari, his knowledge of social and religious habits and practices, mostly acquired during his years on the road, opened the elder’s heart and those of the Balochi people of Sa’idi, people who now had stepped into the tent, forming a large circle round Ali and the snowy-bearded elder. Out of this wide circle came the elder’s three sons and daughter to lead him to his own red tent at the outskirts of the settlement. His horse was led to pasture with the others.

On the thick carpets of his medium-sized tent, Ali sat and meditated upon that ambiguous nod. Had he really become the one of them? Deep within his heart, the former Englishman rejoiced … rejoiced at his ‘crossing over’. He had become what he really was …  

Several years passed. Ali no longer felt guilty about leaving his past behind. His immersion seemed complete. He sang and danced round the ritual fire at night. He told stories night after night after a hard day’s work in the poppy fields, apple and peach orchards and the vineyards, the tribesmen chanted their chants of ancestral lore, joined him in his whirling dance, one palm to the Heavens and the other to the Earth, eyes staring into a void of quiescence …

It was in Sa’idi that he began to be called Ali the Dervish, whirling as he did before and behind the leaping flames. Ali taught his dance to the snowy-bearded elder’s three sons. In turn, the elder offered his daughter to him in marriage — a privilege since this signified entrance into the chieftain’s family.

Once the three-day marriage ceremonies were over, his lovely bride — for she was truly lovely — sat next to him in the nuptial red tent. His wife, whose name has never been recorded, demanded nothing of him. She accepted all his nightly hesitations … ‘failings’ … Her fruity laugh and obsidian back eyes spoke a language that communicated higher values … loftier treasures than uncertainty, physical gratification or hereditary obligations.

Ali slowly discovered that his young bride possessed the quality of a seer, perhaps even belonged to a long lineage of Central Asian mystics. Intense were her meditations and visions of the Other World, of events passed and those to come … His past … Their future … Ali, both bewildered and beguiled by this power of prophesy, would timidly question his bride about her unusual gifts. She would answer enigmatically: “One must remove the Husk before bringing in the Bride,” an adage he never fully understood, nor would she ever elucidate.

On other moonlit nights, alone within the sanctuary of their intimacy, Ali’s wife would envision scenes of his long aristocratic lineage, each member afflicted by physical or mental atrophies, plagued by wasting ennui. The Dervish listened in awe as she revealed events quite unknown to him. Yet, he remained speechless, peering into the almond-shaped eyes of this woman depicting scenes that could very well cost him his life. She said nothing. He yearned to avow everything to her but some fey voice prevented him each time. She read his mind and laughed her fruity laugh, delving ever deeper into his life … theirs !

Ali accompanied her with his eyes then turned them to the dying embers of the stove fire, the glowing logs sizzled lightly in the silence. Was he deluding himself? He knew that his wife had discovered his native idenity. But were all those past scenes his true identity? He indeed stemmed from that hoary lineage, the last scion. Was he the last to play a role on this world stage of masquerade and mummery? No ! He was Ali the Dervish … Here amongst these hearty tribesmen he played no role. He had overcome the hardships of childhood as a fatherless boy. That unknown gentleman had left for Africa never to return! Never a letter nor a message brought by acquaintances. Before dying of grief, his poor mother repeated to him everynight: “Look to the stars.” And the sullen boy looked, and believed that they would lead him to another life … another identity !

Once Ali began to cry softly listening to the sizzling embers and the light, rhythmical breathing of his strange wife.

Many years had passed and yet, they had no children. His hair and beard had greyed. Yet, no reprimand, no rebuke, no judgement ever came from the community, especially from her aging father. Was the power of her revelations known to him ? Would he be the last branch of that gnarled and rotten aristocratic tree ?

Ali rode often into the fields and mountains to gather wood to build tent-frames or glean fruit from the many apple and peach trees. During these solitary moments his past crept up on him, making him feel guilty. There seemed only one solution : speak openly, candidly to his wife about his British birth, his genuine desire to become the Other. She would surely understand since she had already read his former life by sounding his heart. That night he would go straight to his wife.

But, just then out of the blue sky his wife came galloping towards him, whipping up her stead. She jumped off, an odd expression wrinkling her forehead. Ali ran up to her, took her shoulders gently, admiring the sapphire blue that framed them so perfectly like a painting. There she stood, basking in the soft glow of the mellowing, evening sun. Before he could utter his rehearsed confession she put a hand to his lips.

“Father has just passed away,” she whispered softly, without emotion. “He has been freed from the trammels of worldly existence.” She smiled. “Now you too are free to divest yourself of a personage that has been conferred to you by the stars and the strength of your will.”

“But who am I really, my dear?” her husband wondered. She caressed his bearded, burning cheeks. She answered: “If you want the horse to neigh, you must slacken the reins.” Turning round, she rode back to the settlement to wash the body of her deceased father and prepare the three-day funeral rites with her brothers. Ali puzzled by that enigmatic counsel trudged to his horse.

He rode back far behind her, meditating his ‘freedom’. What other choice had he?

This sentence was the last in Lady Sheil’s long, detailed letter. On further investigation into this strange fellow at the London library, I discovered that Ali the Dervish had divorced and remarried his bride to one of her brother’s mates, then left Sa’idi. He was last seen in Tabriz, Persia. No document reports his whereabouts after his reaching that northwestern town in the lands of the Azeri people. 

I have often wondered whether Lady Sheil ever knew who Ali the Dervish really was. I have my doubts. Only his Balochi wife knew, and of course, that mysterious person could have never been questioned. It’s also odd that Ali himself — whatever self that be– had never woven his thoughts and experiences into a book, never enlightened a Western public on integration and assimilation into a foreign culture.

As time went by I even considered that this letter might have been a hoax to hoodwink a naive fellow like myself into clothing Ali in legendary fashion. On second thought, though, who’s to arbitrate between fact and fiction ? Not I, in any case. For isn’t it a refreshing act of freedom to slip from one to the other without a pinch of guilt ?     

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[1]        1803-1871.

[2] Balochistan is in Pakistan but the Baloch community spreads to Iran and Ali’s story dates before the formation of Pakistan.

[3]        Published in 1856.

[4]        Large, light baggy trousers.

[5]        ‘Welcome’ in Persian.

[6]        A Persian measurement equivalent to 5.35 kilometres

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Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Categories
Slices from Life

To Bid or Not to Bid… the Final Goodbye?

That is the question Ratnottama Sengupta is asking with so many grey heads since London’s Westminster voted in favour of Assisted Dying

From Public Domain

“She was in so much pain these last four months that we are not mourning her final exit. We are celebrating her liberation.”

Speaking with Bhabhi’s[1] nephew last week forced me to readjust my emotions regarding the final goodbye. Condolences are in order, worldwide, when a dear one departs the mortal world. But of late I have been noticing that people “celebrate the life’ of the departed soul rather than mourn the death. Yes, every departure is a loss, taking an emotional toll of those left behind. And still I am not shocked nor angry that on June 20, a day after Bhabhi breathed her last in Singapore, the British Parliament voted in favour of a bill to legalise Assisted Dying for terminally ill people.

This has paved the way for a long debated social change that has, for as long as I can remember, been held in abeyance. Because? It has always been argued that, since we cannot bring the dead to life, we do not have the right to take away life. Indeed, the UK parliamentarians voted on the subject 10 years after it was first proposed, I learn from the news reports. And even as the Wise Men of London debated the issue, demonstrators outside were crying out, “Kill the Bill, Not the Ill.”

Once the Bill is passed by the House of Lords, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Law will give “mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less life to live, the right to choose to end their life with medical assistance. Those who would want the procedure would have to gain the compassionate “Aye!” of two doctors and a panel of experts.

While the scrutiny by the Upper House might take months, it is unlikely to be blocked now that it has gone past the Commons and secured a nod from the PM.

*

My first acquaintance with the concept was garbed in the words, ‘Mercy Killing’. I was a school-going teenager when I read a Bengali courtroom drama, Parashuramer Kuthar (1989, Parashuram’s Axe) where the son was in the dock, fighting the charge of murdering his mother with morphine. “Night after night she would cry out of acute pain. Night after night I sat by her bed, watching her inch towards death. The doctor had prescribed the morphine that let her sleep at night. But when that failed, I gave her a repeat dose so she could go to sleep…”

Half a century ago that sounded ominous. Now, having seen — and digested — the ‘Assisted Suicide’ of celluloid icon Jean Luc Godard [2] in the autumn of 2022, I have been weighing my responses to the concept. 

Godard, born on July 7, 1930, had lived in France from where he had revolutionised cinema across the globe. At the age of 91, with “multiple disabling pathologies” — to quote his doctors — he went to Switzerland because that was the only country to have legalised euthanasia as long back as 1941. Albeit they have specifications, the overriding one being this: the person assisting the suicide must not have any selfish — read, monetary — motive to provide the seeker the means to exit. 

*

“Euthanasia is death with dignity,” my Jyotish Pishamoshai had said three decades ago. At 90 something, the man who went around all his life in trams and buses, to look up his younger cousins, simply hated to be bed bound. Besides, he had seen his youngest brother Dinesh “hang till death” at age 20, without a trace of remorse for having bombed the Writers Building in the Capital of the Raj. So why would the elder brother, his memory intact, want to “be a burden” to even his only son? Mercifully, Sudhir Da did not have to go the way of Parashuram. The almighty in heaven voted for the nonagerian’s exit.

*

My response to the issue peaked when I read this poem, ‘Antim Akanksha’ (The Last Wish) , by Purnendu Ghosh of Jaipur. This IIT-ian from Kanpur, a diehard cinema aficionado, has penned the same thoughts in Bengali and English too. But I had already translated his anguish in Hindi before I spoke with him. “I had written these lines when I was sitting by my mother-in-law, then languishing in the hospital. When I had first seen her, she was 46. Over the next 46 years, I was witness to the transformation age had forced upon her  I could only watch, helpless, because the final exit is in the hands of only the Almighty.”

I am still weighing my responses. Yes, I believe in the Existence of a Superior Force. Still, when a person has to lie waiting to bid goodbye to pain, would he or she wait for His mercy, or that of the medics?

[1] Sister-in-law

[2] https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/09/16/filmmaker-film-critic-jean-luc-godard-suicide-debates-switzerland.html

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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Categories
Stories

Nico returns to Burgaz

By Paul Mirabile

Burgaz: From Public Domain

Nico hurried off the steamer at Burgaz Island, oblivious of the swarming passengers disembarking and embarking. How long had it been since he had stepped foot on the island of his grandfather’s birth: twelve … thirteen years ? He made a bee-line for the central plaza. There he still stood, Saït Faïk, ever so thoughtful, leaning against that eternal tree. Nico approached the Turkish poet –Grandpa would have been so delighted to be here with us again. I’m sure he would have asked you about the talking seaweed and weeping mussels, Nico mused.

Vasiliki had passed away six years ago, a natural death, probably in his sleep. The old fisherman had asked Nico to have him buried between his wife, Nefeli, and daughter, Myrto, which he dutifully accomplished. Since the adolescent was the sole inheritor, he sold his grandfather’s little house for a good price, which permitted him to live comfortably in Athens while completing his university studies. Indeed, because he was parentless, and because his grades in grammar school were excellent, Nico had qualified for a scholarship. The ambitious student, thus, enjoyed financial ease to continue studying several more years for his doctorate. He excelled in Greek language and literature, French and English philology, in European History. At nights he read and spoke Turkish with several Turkish friends, for the vision of returning to Burgaz stole upon him like those perfumed nights on Burgaz with his grandfather as they contemplated the star-studded sky. That seemed so long ago …

Once his doctoral thesis defended, Nico left Greece and set off for Burgaz, off on an adventure. Poetry had been a major part of his thesis, and he had written quite a few poems, contributing to the university Literary Club’s weekly journal. Some of his poems and short stories caught the eye of an editor in Athens who had them published in a widespread monthly magazine. Soon he was invited to poetry readings and story-telling jousts, and because of these eventful evenings his circle of readers widened like concentric ripples in a pool of water after a rock had been thrown in …

The young poet left Athens not knowing exactly what Destiny held for him … nor what drove him so powerfully to return to the island. Was it because of his love for his grandfather ? His fascination for Saït Faïk? Or both? Saïk’s provided him with inexhaustible inspiration. Perhaps, too, it was the mystery of Burgaz of which his grandfather had so oftentimes spoke. Yes. It might have been that.

The horse-drawn carriage pulled up in front of the long flight of stairs to Zorba’s ‘humble’ home. Nico paid and began to ascend the worn-out mossy steps. Nothing had changed as the fretted gable slowly loomed in front of him. The perfumed scent of azaleas, roses, honeysuckles and pomegranate stirred distant memories. He had written to Zorba about his project to spend some time on Burgaz, and the good merchant, although away for several months in the United States on business, insisted that the young poet stay as long as he wished in his ‘humble’ home. He would be greeted and well-fed by his trusty maid, Zelda.

On hearing carriage bells Zelda rushed out, waiting for the ascending Nico arms akimbo. He dropped his knapsack, shoulder-bag and hugged the good woman. Speaking Greek had been her wont when Nico accompanied his grandfather years ago, but now, since the young man had decided to sojourn in Burgaz, she spoke to him in Turkish. Zelda was pleasantly surprised to hear him reply quite readily in Turkish. In fact, Zelda would prove an excellent tutor for Nico. Her grammar was excellent and her accent easy to understand.

So, after a solid diner, exhausted after a long day of travelling, Nico once again trudged up the steps of the floating stairway, the tinkling sound of the fountain below tickling his ears, opened the door to the room he knew so well with its frescoed ceiling of Greek heroes and large bay window looking out upon the darkened forests and the Marmara Sea. He washed and before drifting off to sleep, read a few chapters from Homer’s Odeyssus, which he always carried with him when ‘on the road’, and several paragraphs from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar (Last Birds), underlining the words he couldn’t understand.

Up early the next morning, Zelda had prepared a breakfast of black olives, goat’s cheese, hard-boiled eggs, bread, butter, rose jam and black tea. She had gone to the local market (it was Tuesday) and would not be back before eleven.

Dressed lightly — the weather was very warm,  Nico sauntered down the same long and winding path through the wooded slope that led to the stony beach, hoping Abi Din Bey would still be serving grilled-cheese sandwiches, and spouting poetry for his customers. How the brisk island breeze of the sea swept away the cobs of lingering doubt in Nico’s mind as he descended — doubts that had tortured him because his grandfather would no longer be at his side, physically. Yet, when he stepped upon the beach these doubts evaporated. Vasiliki was there and would always be there. He spotted several fishing boats out at sea. Had Nico built a new boat with the help of his grandfather? Indeed he had. It was the biggest and most beautiful of all his boats! Much bigger than the Nefeli which was still in route towards China. But this wonderful boat would not be launched into the leaden seas: it lay housed in a small museum in Hydra where it can be admired by both the young and the old. In fact, Nico even won an award for that marvellous construction. He had named her Myrto in memory of his grandfather’s daughter. The tombstone engraver, on Nico’s behest, carved the silhouette of his boat on Vasiliki’s gravestone.

Abi Din Bey’s welcoming gate had been sealed! The homely front gardens lay desolate, the trees devoid of fruit, clusters of weed and couch grass grew wild. The poet’s house, albeit perfectly intact, exhaled an odour of negligence. Nico stared at this bleak scene, his heart growing heavy. It had never occurred to him that Abi Din Bey would not come rushing out to greet him. That this solitary man was mortal like all other human beings … like his grandfather. He felt like a child who believes his or her parents immortal out of love for them.

From behind a middle-aged man walked  up to him: “Abi Din died about ten or eleven years ago,” he began in a soft voice in broken Turkish. “He has no inheritors, so his house stands derelict and abandoned.”

Nico, snapped out of his despondency, eyed the stranger with mixed emotions. “What of his poetry?”

“Abi Din’s life of a poet held absolutely no interest for most who prefer to live in a cloud of unknowing. Abi Din Bey wrote some excellent poems, but alas no one had ears to listen to them.”

“We listened to them,” remonstrated Nico, though rather lamely.

“I know you did, you and your grandfather, Vasiliki.”

Nico reeled back as if struck by a blow. “How do you know … Who are you?”

“Oh, who I am makes no difference to anyone. But if you insist. I am the pilgrim of the heart, I voyage throughout the world admiring its marvels, an idler preaching the blessings of uselessness. Abi Din was one of those marvels, one of those brilliantly elevated idlers.” With those words, the stranger turned to leave.

Nico caught him by an arm: “Sir, where is the old man who piled up stones on the beach ? I haven’t seen him.”

“Nor will you ever see him again. Gone too, and some say that he recited several passages from Saït Faïk’s Son Kuşlar on his dying breath. Have you read Saït Faïk?”

Overcome by all these converging threads of some hidden or latent fabric beyond his grasp or comprehension, Nico could only stutter: “Well … yes … in fact…”

The other interrupted: “Listen, if you want to pay respects towards Abi Din and Saït, you should buy his house. It’s not very expensive.”

“But you …” The unnamed pilgrim put up a hand.

“I have no possessions. That is my first life principle. I idle my way through countries, people and books like a phantom. You buy it, my friend. Buy it before either Time brings about its ruin or the Burgaz municipality its demolition. For now, there are no plans to do either. It’s a mystery why that quaint house has not caught the eye of some eager artist.”  And he gave Nico a wink.

“Mystery?” A sudden bout of remorse paralysed Nico. Had his grandfather not spoken of a mystery on Burgaz?

“Yes, mystery! Isn’t that why you’ve returned?” With that last question left unanswered by a flummoxed Nico, the pilgrim strolled away along the beach, chanting some sea-faring tune.

When Nico came to his senses he literally jumped for joy. he would buy Abi Din’s house, settle on Burgaz and pursue his artistic life simply, wholeheartedly. He could become a resident of Turkey merely by depositing enough money in the Osmanlı Bankası[1]. The anonymous figure of the pilgrim had since vanished into a haze of blue. Nico ran up the winding path to Zorba’s home, where Zelda had been preparing lunch. Excitedly he explained his project. She thought it a smashing idea, and promised to help him with the paper work. They ate, had their coffee, and at two o’clock walked to the crossroads, hailed a carriage and rode to the Town Hall, a majestic, white-washed villa near the centre of town.

On the way, Nico asked Zelda whether or not she knew of a middle-aged man who walked about the island, idling his way here and there. Zelda giggled: “Oh yes, him. The Turks call him Mister başı boş [2]and the Greeks tempelis[3].”

“But he’s far from empty-headed,” remonstrated Nico.

“I’m sure he isn’t, that’s why I call him ‘aylak‘.”

“I don’t know the word.”

“Someone who idles about without any definite destination.” Nico nodded, puzzled none the less at these attributes of a person who seemed quite ‘full-headed’ to him …

The irksome formalities to purchase Abi Din’s house would fill a book. Suffice it to report that in two weeks the house belonged to Nico, once he had deposited enough money in the bank, and of course, bought the house in cash …

Although Nico now spent most of his time in his acquired house, he always ate lunch with Zelda at Zorba’s house, and sometimes dinner. It must be recorded here that Nico was better versed in writing stories than in culinary skills.

Every morning after breakfasting, Nico would roam the hilltops of Burgaz sauntering cheerfully along the dirt paths, jotting down in his little notebook details that caught his eye or thoughts that scudded across his mind. The island air intoxicated him as he conjured up characters and events for future stories or poems.

On Sundays, Nico would attend services at St John’s Greek cathedral, there mingling with the small community members who had taken a liking to this young man, calling him their ‘island writer’! He became a novelty for the islanders, who invited him dine or to read his creations. Meanwhile, several of Nico’s short stories and poems were being published in Athens by his editor and were read by the Greek community in Burgaz. Nico even attempted to write poems and stories in Turkish which Zelda not only corrected, but suggested a more fitting word or subtle syntax structure.

Once a month, Nico took the steamer to Heybeliada, or in Greek, Chalki[4], the third of the four Princess Islands where he was fortunate enough to consult the books at the library of the massive Greek Theological Centre, opened in 1844 for seminarists but closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Although prohibited, Nico’s reputation, which had spread to all the islands, allowed him to study at the library, the second largest religious library in the western world, several million tomes behind the Vatican’s. The young artist even managed to work two days a week there. How he managed that remains a mystery.

Once or twice a month, accompanied by Zelda, Nico would go to Büyükada (Big Island) called ‘Prinkipo’ in Greek because it is the largest island of the four, and stroll along a tarred road to contemplate the largest wooden building in Europe, a former Greek orphanage, built by the French in 1898. The Greeks bought it and children who had lost their parents were lodged here until its forced closing in 1964. This eerie-looking structure remained intact. Surrounded by high barb-wire fencing and guarded by savage dogs, no one could enter it. Every time Nico stood before this ominous edifice, he thought of his grandfather who had salvaged him from such a parentless fate. Perhaps, the children here were well taken care of…

One day as Nico sauntered along one of the myriad paths in the wooded hills of Burgaz he came face to face with the idling pilgrim. So delighted was Nico to meet this eccentric character that he began to pour out all the good news that had occurred to him since their last encounter many months ago. The other smiled kindly: “No need to repeat what many have already told me,” he stated indifferently. “Nothing on Burgaz goes unnoticed, especially novelties such as yourself. I wouldn’t want to puff up your pride, but some have considered you as a new Saït Faïk.”

Nico stared at the pilgrim disconcertedly. “I can assure you, my dear friend, that you have made quite a reputation for yourself on Burgaz. And who knows, you may be able to solve the mystery of which your grandfather so often spoke.” Baffled, Nico remained speechless. The other took his arm and they strolled together downwards into the sinking sun.

Nico could not contain his surprise: “How could you know about …”

“About Vasiliki’s mystery? Ah, that would entail hours of explanation, Nico. For now let us discuss your writings, for the intention behind those writings may have given you the key to unlock the mystery.”

The pilgrim paused sniffing the pine- and spruce-scented air. “You know, many writers have lost touch with reality, or have been completely overwhelmed by it. They seem incapable of telling a story, transmitting the joys and sorrows of their characters whose traits lie deep in their own hearts, imprisoned like birds in a cage, fluttering frantically, unable to express the Truth of what lies beneath the masks and costumes. Saït Faïk, Edgar Poe, Dino Buzzati[5], Guy de Maupassant[6], Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield all drew their inspiration from fragments of a separate reality, the glints of a deflected flood of light, the shards of a broken vase to disclose the experiences of their characters, to bestow upon their readers the amalgamated emotions that flew freely from their hearts. Their stories and poems are not talk-of-the-day productions. They were derived from the unlocking of the cage, the flight outwards into the battlefield between joy and sorrow. You would think that their eyes were turned both inwards and outwards at the same time. There is something powerful, even sacred, if I may use that word, in their narrated experiences, which does not necessarily entail the use of I, nor does it insinuate a ‘message’ to be harnassed or brought into line by the opinionated or bigoted. The syntax rhythms and word combinations expose  the élan or the coming and going between the inward and the outward regard … I discern in your regard that inward and outward alternating vision, the aura that enhaloes your stories and poems. But mind you, this is only an idler’s perception.”

“What do you mean by aura?” Nico, crimsoning under the weight of so many complex compliments, managed to ask, almost out of breath.

“The halo of tradition that all sincere writing bears,” came the succinct reply. “A poem or a short-story, as in your case, bears an aura familiar to the reader, yet whose tale and expression of this tale transports him or her to strange, unfamiliar places. This is especially noticeable in your Turkish writings, an uncanny concoction of familiarity and eeriness. Perhaps it’s due to Zelda’s mixed origins.”

Nico stopped in his tracks, a blank look on his face. “Yes, Zelda, who, when we cross paths, addresses me as the ‘aylak‘. Her father was a remarkable writer and professor of philosophy in Greece and in Turkey. She inherited much of his wisdom as well as her mother’s strong character.” Nico stood stunned by this revelation.

“Zelda is only …”

“Only what, my friend ? Zorba’s maid or servant ? Ah ! I see you haven’t delved deep enough into the hearts of those who are very close to you. I’ve noted, too, that you have never written one line or verse about your deceased grandfather.”

Nico, stung to the quick by the very truth of that remark, bowed his head. He felt a surging wave of shame, and on this billowing wave rode an undulating image of a squealing seal that he and his grandfather had admired on their fishing adventure — an image gradually over-shadowed by another, more fuzzy, the stiffening body of a seagull on a pebbly shore near the mouth of a cavern.

The mild voice of his companion brought back these troubling scenes: “When all is said and done you will surely open wider the cage and let fly the encaged birds towards brighter poetic heights. Heights that perhaps you have yet to imagine.” With those comforting but enigmatic words the pilgrim turned to leave. He halted and asked: “Tell me, have you been to Granada?”

“Granada, Spain? No I haven’t, why?”

“You look like someone I met there.” The idler disappeared downwards into the crimson glint of sunset.

Nico ran back to Zorba’s house, undecided whether to speak to Zelda about her family. He never dreamed of broaching the subject to her as she herself had never bought up.

When the young writer had lumbered up those mossy steps he found Zelda seated on an armchair in the corner of the dining room, a shadow of gloom etched on her face. Her eyes were red. Wordlessly, she handed him a letter. It was written in faulty Greek, addressed to Zelda from an associate of Zorba’s in New York. A moment later Nico looked at Zelda with deep compassion. Zorba had died of a heart attack. His body would be sent to Burgaz for burial, accompanied by several of his associates who intended to buy his house.

“What will happen to me?” were Zelda’s first strained words. “I refuse to live in the same house with strangers even if they are Zorba’s associates.”

“Have you any family, Zelda? Anywhere to go? Anyone to help you financially?” She nodded in the negative to all these questions.

Nico sat down beside her: “Listen Zelda, come live with me, it’s a bit cramped, but at least you will have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a good friend who will always be at your side.”

Zelda dried her eyes and stared at Nico in embarrassment.

“I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said faintly.

“Exactly!” responded Nico excitedly. “You shall be the mother I hardly ever knew, in the same way that the presence of Abi Din in his house has been the father I hardly ever knew. How my grandfather would rejoice at that family reunion, however surreal, if I may say so.” Zelda smiled.

And with that acquiescing smile the two orphaned destinies appeared to converge into one …  

[1]        The biggest bank of Turkey at the time of Nico’s arrival specializing in international transactions. (Ottoman Bank).

[2] Empty-headed

[3] Lazy bones

[4]        ‘Chalki’ in Greek means ‘copper’. The Ancient and Byzantine Greeks excavated copper on this island.

[5]        Italian short-story writer ‘(1906-1972).

[6]        French short-story writer.(1850-1893)

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by John Swain

John Swain
ABOVE THE ORATORY 

The wheatfields lean like a sundial over the river,
sun bronzes the walking staff rafted at my shoulder,
the wind flowers flax for your dress in the sun.

Glimpsing the jasper hill, we contemplate a palace
beyond ascent,
the roof lanterns above the oratory dome,
we burn thoughts like myrrh, the fragrant smoke horses,
the sky sings to the earth with the meadowlark.

I recite the codex pouring from your mirrored eye-stone,
we read the light in silence awed by the light you table.

John Swain lives in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France.  His most recent chapbook, The Daymark, was published by the Origami Poems Project.

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Categories
Stories

In the Realm of Childhood

By Paul Mirabile

From Public Domain

1970s, Scotland

The three youngsters: Rachel, fourteen, her fifteen year old brother, Victor, both born in Edinburgh but raised in Moffat, Scotland, and Kenneth, sixteen, born in Moffat, were inseparable. After school or on week-ends they would explore all the surrounding forests and burr-filled heathers around their town. Victor, good at maps, chartered every trail twisting through, over and around the wooded hollows and hillsides of rowan, hazel, holly and hawthorn sloping up or down the cloven banks of the Annan River. Kenneth and Rachel, excellent artists, sketched all the cawing rooks, starlings and wild owls they espied perched in trees; all the weird insects they avoided crushing during their jaunts. Victor, also a fine artist, drew stags, wild boar, snakes and turtles which he observed at the foot of leafless trees or upon snow-packed hill-tops. They were quite an adventurous trio to say the least, unafraid of steep gorges or the trackless stretches of marshy woodlands.

Our tale opens on a warm spring day; a tale of artistic ardour, ingenious artifice, and especially childhood passions …

The entrance of the cave lay hidden behind a tangle of thorny bramble, thistle and snapdragons. Rachel was the first to discover it when from its mouth a swarm of swallows suddenly darted out, frightened no doubt by her approaching footsteps. Rachel advanced slowly, pushing aside thorny, arching thickets. She halted wide-eyed, staring at a narrow passage that slipped gently downwards deep into darkness.

“Kenneth … Victor, quick I’ve fund[1] a cave!” the excited girl cried, craning forward at its threshold. The boys, sleepy-eyed because they had been up with the larks, trudged towards the resounding shouts of their fellow explorer. They broke through the bramble and bush, joining Rachel at the mouth of the cave.

“Don’t go in,” warned Kenneth. “We have no torches and it may be a bear’s den.” Rachel, who had stepped into the passage, shuddered.

“Stop scaring her,” Victor snapped. “Da[2] said that a bear hasn’t been seen in this area since the 1920s.”

Kenneth raised his chin haughtily: “Perhaps … still, we need light to explore it.”

“Listen, tomorrow we’ll come back with torches, pokes[3], bits[4] and paper to make a map of it,”  Rachel suggested sagely. 

“A map of what?” asked her brother, poking his head into the cavernous umbers.

“Of our cave, laddie, what do you think? It may be full of treasure?”

“Gold … diamonds … rubies …?” asked Kenneth with sarcasm, giggling under his breath.

“Aye! Aladdin’s cavern,” echoed Victor quite seriously. “Let’s get back and make all the preparations.” The three jubilant explorers did exactly that after having zig-zagged through the patches of fabled forest and heather fields that girted their town.

They spent that evening readying their equipment: sandwiches stuffed into knapsacks, boots, torches, pocket-knives, pencils, paper and rope, if needed. Nothing was to be said about the cave to their parents. It was their secret, and their secret alone …

It was in the wee hours of a Saturday morning after a speedy breakfast that they penetrated the mouth of the cave, heedful of anything alive, wary of anything dead. Not once did they have to stoop. Training their torches on the walls, the youngsters at first walked down a long, narrow gallery whose walls glistened smooth like obsidian, yet brittle to the touch. Then the gallery suddenly widened into a huge chamber.

“It’s like a kirk[5],” whispered Kennth, almost with reverence.  

“How do you mean?” whispered Victor in turn.

“Well … look, we’re standing in the nave, and there, further back is the apse.”

Victor stared in awe. The chamber indeed bulged out in colossal dimensions; it did have a church-like configuration.

“Here … Here!” Rachel gesticulated in a hushed voice as if not to disturb anything … or anyone ! “It’s a well.” She stepped back. Victor and Kennth rushed over, stopping at the edge of a huge opening in the rocky floor. Kenneth picked up a pebble and tossed it down. Down and down and down it floated: soundlessly …

The children stared at one another somewhat put off. They walked cautiously back into the ‘kirk’ chamber.

Rachel stopped, scanning the walls: “I have an idea, laddies.” She paused to create a suspenseful sensation, a whimsical smile highlighting her bright, round eyes. “Why don’t we decorate the walls of the cave with animals … or hunters just like the cavemen artists did in their caves ? I’m first in my class in art and so is Kenneth. Victor, too, paints marvellously well.” The two boys eyed her curiously.

“But why would we want to do that?” Kenneth enquired superciliously, although intrigued by Rachel’s idea, for indeed Kenneth had proven himself the best artist at their school.

Rachel trained her torch on the walls then argued: “First, to practice our painting, right ? Then … then … to play a joke on everyone in town about their origins.” Rachel’s eyes glowed with mischievousness.

“What do you mean play a joke on everyone in town?” It was now Victor who sized up his sister suspiciously.

“We could tell everyone that we ‘fund‘ cave paintings and have our pictures in the dailies.” Rachel was absolutely radiate with rapture.

Kenneth laughed. Victor appeared to warm to the idea, albeit prudently. He paced the cavern floor, scanning the smooth, dry walls. He spun on his heels and faced an adamant Kenneth, who scrutinized both with a cool aloofness: “Aye! What a bloody good idea! It’ll be our project, a real artistic project; and who gives a damn if people are fooled or not. Don’t you see Kenneth, it’ll be a brilliant chance to paint what we want to paint.”

Kenneth passed his hand carefully along the cave walls, his finger-tips tracing imaginary designs. He chuckled: “Brilliant idea, Rachel,” he admitted. “Aye, a stroke of inspiration! We can ground and sift our own pigments with the forest and riverside plants and minerals just like the cavemen did. The rock isn’t granite, look, it just chips away when you scratch it. First we’ll engrave the pictures then paint them. It’ll fill the cave with a magical lustre, a true primitive or prehistoric aura.”

“We could steam vegetables and use the juice to paint,” added Victor, growing more inflamed.

“We could even mix the paintings with hot wax for a more aged effect,” Rachel suggested.

“Nae! That’s how the Greeks painted. That technique is called encaustic. We want a caveman’s artistic technique and touch,” Kenneth checked her.

“But won’t we be going against the law?” Victor asked in a subdued tone.

“Don’t be a dafty, of course not!” Rachel reprimanded him. “It’s our cave. We fund it, didn’t we ? We’re only decorating it.”

“Aye. But to play a trick on adults,” he continued lamely.

“A little trick won’t have us tossed into gaol, laddie,” reminded Kenneth. “It’s a swell idea, and we can really explore our painting techniques and colour schemes.”

And so in the depths of that cave, unknown to the rest of the world, the youngsters’ project, or should I say, scheme, had been sealed.

Hence, the cave became their point of reference, their realm of eternal childhood, more intimate than either school or home, their retreat of borderless imagination. Day after day on those barren walls within the dry darkness of their grotto-world, their imagination, so fertile because bubbling over with youthful turbulence, brought to life animal figures, first hewn with small chisels then painted with fingers (especially thumbs), or with sticks, brushed over with clumps of grass. No paint-brush was ever used. Their painting techniques remained those of prehistoric cave-artists.

Kenneth, well versed in rock painting from his school art classes and own research, chose the designs and advised Victor and Rachel how to apply the pigments. Each chose a section of the cavern to exercise his or her talents: Victor began to draw several cattle heads in the kirk with umbers that he ground and sifted from clay, boiled acorns, with their cups, and boiled mushrooms. It conferred to his cattle grey, tawny tones; tones that seemed to afford a glow of warmth to the cold walls.

Kenneth took charge of the western nave of the kirk, animating its walls with a big black cow, two galloping horses and two bison, all in charcoal black with a fringe of madder pigment. The plant had been gathered at the Annan riverside, then ground and sifted into a deep, crimson red.

As to Rachel, she applied her talent on the eastern nave wall with a two-metre long frieze of deer heads. Rachel also took charge of making a small fire to boil the plants and vegetables, whose steamed-juice transformed the plants or vegetables into liquid pigments. She poured the liquid into small glass containers and let them sit for one night before application.

“We’re like the cavemen who discovered fire,” Rachel said cheerfully as she steamed the plants and vegetables she had gleaned either from the forest or ‘borrowed’ from her mother’s kitchen.

“Not so, lassie. It was light that discovered fire, the cavemen merely rendered it physical,” corrected Kenneth smugly.  Rachel shrugged her shoulders …

With his customary pedantry, Kenneth advised: “Don’t forget mates, painting doesn’t reproduce what is visible, but restores or renders what no one has ever seen.”

Rachel and Victor ignored him, chuckling to themselves.

They worked diligently in rhythm with the stillness of the cave, their imaginations soaring to the height and breadth of their lithic horizon. For they were careful not to surpass those limits, not to crowd the walls with too many figures. The roaming animals needed space to breathe and the young artists provided them with that vital space: horses trot … cows graze … deer gambol. Kenneth, after having examined a hunter armed with a bow in a book of cave paintings, added this figure to his zoological repertoire. The hunter had let fly an arrow and followed its flight towards something unknown. Kenneth had his arrow fly towards one of his elks. The posture of the hunter having released his arrow from a taunt bow was crudely traced then coloured in rusty ochre. It would be the only human representation of the grotto paintings.

All the paintings had been previously drawn on a flat surface of paper by Victor. Rachel arranged the positions of their depictions and the boys made mental notes of them before undertaking the actual wall representation. Kenneth had reminded Rachel and Victor that the intention of the artist was not to copy what they see but to express it, and that their undertaking should not seek a tawdry or fantastic effect, but a simple one, for simplicity is essential to true art. If they really hoped to convince the townsfolk of the millennial authenticity of their pictures, then this artistic canon had to be respected scrupulously.

Gradually the cave walls burst out into a magical menagerie: Victor’s two-horned aurochs, painted in umber came to life and Rachel’s deer-head frieze boldly gambolled out of the rock in striking shades of madder red. Rachel, applying a prehistoric technique, blew the madder pigment on to the wall through a straw, then smeared it roughly with her thumb or a feather. 

The volume of their art thickened with vegetal and mineral glints as the volume of the walls, too, thickened with a phantasmagoria creatures depicted in a style they thought of as from stone ages.

Sometimes, the youngsters would dance and sing round the fire, recite poetry, or even compose a few verses of their own in joyful wantonness. “Our cave is the setting of an unfolding story, laddies,” Rachel giggled.

This pictural setting was indeed the fruit of their childhood imagination … and talent.

The day finally arrived when the cave-artists put the final touches to their masterpiece, an œuvre of considerable talent, even genius, given the lack of adult counsel and absence of light in the cave. For they had laboured as the prehistoric artist had laboured: by torch light (theirs, of course, electric!), and from the flames of their little fire’s chiaroscuro dancing upon the walls.

This being said, to divulge the discovery of the cave and its pictural contents would be a bit dodgy. They chose to wait several weeks to reflect on how they would announce their discovery. Kenneth, meanwhile, every now and then tossed dust on the pictures to harden and ‘age’ them. They lost their glint but the umbers seemed to strike the eye more prominently. They left nothing in the cave that would jeopardise their scheme. The ashes of their fire were swept into the well or used to tinge some of the figures in a rough, taupe grey.

Finally, on a clammy late Saturday morning, Rachel and Victor stormed into their parents’ home out of breath :

“Maw! Da! Come quick,” exclaimed Rachel red in the face. “We fund a cave.”

“Aye, a real deep cave full of animal pictures,” seconded Victor, sweating from the brow, either from exhaustion or fear. “You have to come to see for yourselves,” he insisted. “The cave’s not far off, near the riverside.”

Their mother and father, not very eager to tear themselves away from their armchair reading, nevertheless let their panting children drag them to the mouth of the cave. Once there, they all entered, the parents a bit warily. Victor, at the head of the expedition, led them down into the cave, scanning the walls with his torchlight which exposed several paintings. His father, unversed in cave-paintings, had, however, studied art at university in Edinburgh. The paintings intrigued him. His wife stood dumbfounded before such a vast array of art work.

“What striking pictures!” she exclaimed, staring wide-eyed in admiration as her husband illumined one section of the wall after another. Bedazzled by such parental compliments, Rachel felt an ardent urge to thank them. She checked herself. Victor remained quiet.

“Aye!” uttered their father reflectively. “This is certainly not a chambered cairn tomb. I’ll contact specialists immediately. Meanwhile, you two (indicating his children) get the school authorities to photograph the cave and the paintings. Even if they’re not authentic, they do make for a good story in the local papers until the police find the culprits who contrived this whole thing.”

“What do you mean not authentic?” asked Victor timorously.

“Well, you know, there have been art counterfeiters over the ages, but it takes time before the experts uncover their ingenious device.”

“What happens to them?” Rachel dared ask, eyeing Victor sullenly.

“They’re tossed into gaol where they rightly belong!” concluded their father, puckering his lips. Rachel winced at the word gaol …

When their parents had returned home, Rachel and Victor made a bee-line for Kenneth’s house, where they informed him of their parents’ reaction, especially the tossing into gaol.

Kenneth chuckled out of the corner of his mouth: “Keech[6] ! Minors aren’t thrown into gaol, goonies[7]. Nae, you know what they say: ‘Fools look to tomorrow. Wise men use tonight.’” Neither Rachel nor her brother really understood that point, but it did have a pleasant ring to their ears.

The following weeks were hectic ones for the youngsters both at home and at school. Pupils bombarded them with questions whilst at home the telephone never stopped ringing. All the thorny bramble, thistle and snapdragons had been cut away from the mouth of the cave allowing photographers to take pictures and journalists to examine the figures for themselves. Soon travellers from afar reached the cave to feast their eyes on these wonderful works of prehistoric art.  During that feverish time no one dreamed that they had been drawn by our three adventurers …

Secretly the adventurers were delighted. And for good reason: they had their pictures taken in front of the cave by professional photographers, and had been interviewed not only by local reporters, but reporters sent from Edinburgh, Glasglow and even London. Experts had been contacted, seven to be exact, two of whom from London.

Kenneth brooded over the outcome. He sensed that the arrival of the experts bode ill-tidings. He knew they wouldn’t go to gaol, but, would they query of the age of the pigments however primitive their mixtures, their application and original whereabouts? Would they suspect foul play simply because, besides carved stone balls, prehistoric art work had never been discovered in Scotland? These men had very technical means to detect the precise date of pigments and their wall application …

All seven arrived together. Together they entered the cave brandishing large, powerful torches and miners’ helmets. Huge crowds had gathered for the occasion: photographers, journalists and even local writers swarmed throughout the surrounding hilly forests. Kenneth sat on a rock, his chin cupped in his hands. He felt miserable. Victor, wringing his hands frantically, paced back and forth near the riverside until his footfalls had traced a path. Rachel bit the ends of her hair nervously, casting furtive glances towards the thickening crowd. Dozens of people had been congratulating them on their find all morning.

“Would they congratulate us as much if they learned we were the artists?” snickered Victor sarcastically.

“Aye, I wonder,” Rachel responded drily.

“Bloody hell, why make things worse!” Kenneth snorted stiffly, staring at the backs of the crowd in front of the cave. “The whole thing was zany[8] to begin with. Those professors will be on to us, I’m sure.” All the three bowed their heads resigned to their fate in silent expectation.

The seven filed out of the cave with wry smiles difficult to decipher. A strange composition indeed: severe or cryptic … sharp or ironic … gruff or awe-inspired! No one appeared to be able to interpret those ambivalent smiles, especially our three young artists, who had by then stomped up the humpy hillside towards the murmuring crowd. Everyone present eyed the children in nervous anticipation as if they held the key to unlock those facial mysteries. Alas none had …

The experts pushed through the crowd and reached the standing children. One of them with a pointy beard and a sweet smile asked them very politely to lead them to the home of their parents where they would like to speak to them in private. Kenneth’s father ran up and immediately agreed to offer his home for their conference. Besides, it was the closest. He led the way through the fabled forest and over the heather fields. Arriving at the door, the pointy bearded expert informed Kenneth’s father that their conference was be held without parental intrusion. Had the father any choice ? Apparently not, for the front door of his humble home was shut quietly in his astonished face …

Now whatever took place behind the shut door of that humble home the ever-present narrator is, alas, at a loss to relate. For hours and hours and hours seemed to pass, and having reached the number of words permitted in this tale, it behoves him to abandon his readers to imagine the outcome … or the verdict themselves …   

From Public Domain

[1]        ‘found’ in the Scots tongue.

[2]        ‘Father’ in the Scots tongue.

[3]        ‘bag or pouch’ in the Scots tongue.

[4]        ‘Boots’ in the Scots tongue.

[5]        ‘Church’ in the Scots tongue.

[6]        ‘Rubbish’ in the Scots tongue.

[7]        ‘Idiots’ in the Scots tongue.

[8]        ‘Crazy’ in the Scots tongue.

Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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Categories
Stories

Vasiliki and Nico Go Fishing

By Paul Mirabile

From Public Domain

It was Easter holiday. Nico had ten days off from school. His grandfather, Vasiliki, had promised his grandson to take him out on a fishing expedition for a few days on the island of Pontikos to the south-east of Hydra. It was a tiny island hardly inhabited by man where wildlife roamed freely. Vasiliki had been there several times with his father. They always stayed in a cave which lay hidden in a small creek, unknown to all, save of course, themselves …

So one April morning, the sky more or less clear and the sea calm, Vasiliki weighed anchor and they set out in his motorised sailing dinghy. Making sure the motor was not in gear he pulled the pull-starter to ignite it. An instant later he choked it.

“Why did you choke the motor, grandpa?” Nico enquired, eating sardines with a slab of goat cheese and bread.

“Have to warm her up a bit, my boy. The fuel needs a few seconds to fill her.” Vasiliki again tugged at the pull-starter and away they glided, humming slowly away from the make-shift pier, Nico now hauling in the tie-ropes. Vasiliki took firm hold of the throttle, steering the boat out of the coastal waters.

“Shouldn’t we hoist the jibe, grandpa?”

“Not today. There isn’t much wind and Pontikos is far off. Thanks to my new motor, we’ll get there quicker … Tonight we’ll be eating shrimp,” he shouted over the pleasant humming of his new motor. “ And tomorrow morning we’ll fish for sea bream. Prawns and shrimp rise to the surface of the water at night and sea bream during the day.”

“Why is that, grandpa?” Nico sat sleepily on coils of rope at the bow wiping off the pieces of bread that had fallen on his anorak. He enjoyed the smell of the sea, that briny, seaweed smell. The air had a sweet taste to it that he could not identify, perhaps oleander or fuchsia.

His grandfather scratched his silvery beard: “I really don’t know why. Fish are like us humans. They have different reactions to different circumstances.” Nico, although not quite satisfied with this response had not the heart to pursue the subject.

“The sky was red last night,” continued Vasiliki, gently manoeuvring the throttle, steering the sail-less dinghy further out away from the dangerous rocky shores of Hydra. “You know what they say: ‘Red at night, sailor take delight; red in the morning, sailor take warning.’ No storm will be on us this morning.”

“Why do they say that, grandpa?” asked the inquisitive Nico.

Vasiliki observed the clouds moving in behind Hydra: “I really don’t know, Nico. It’s just one of rhymes that fishermen and sailors have repeated for centuries.” Vasiliki sniffed the air: “The weather will be clear only for us up till tonight, Nico. Who knows, we just may see a rainbow.”

“Only for us, grandpa?”

Vasiliki smiled: “Well, we’re the only ones out on the sea this morning, right?”

Nico nodded. Indeed their vessel was the only one seen on the whole wide horizon. The boy looked up — white puffy clouds plodded across the blue like camels over desert sands.

The motor raced them out into an Aegean smooth as silk. Gentle wavelets slapped the sides of the dinghy. The plodding caravan continued it’s heavenly voyage, the sun peeping over and to the sides of their creamy white humps. Nico gasped, he was witnessing an amazing spectacle of Creation! The early morning breeze stung his cheeks a crimson red. It was his first time out on a fishing expedition with his grandfather. How excited he was. He shot a glance behind him: a few dark clouds rose above the bleak cliffs of Hydra.

“The northern winds, grandpa,” he informed the steering Vasiliki, his voice a bit shaky. “They’ll be on us.”

“No bother, my boy, we’re out-racing them thanks to our new motor. That’s why I didn’t hoist the jibe, you see. Don’t forget : ‘red at night is sailor’s delight !’ Anyway, we’ll be at Pontikos in a few hours, long before those nasty black clouds chase or swallow those lovely white puffy ones.”

“Like the sea monsters that swallow boats and their crew, grandpa?”

Vasiliki offered no reply.

Three hours later, Vasiliki slackened speed by gradually easing up on the motor until he pressed the choke button on the throttle. He then took up the oars and began rowing strenuously, the muscles of his arms and shoulders contracting to the rhythmic movements of the current.

“Why have you cut the motor, grandpa?”

“Cause we’re entering the creek where our cave is. We have to be very careful to avoid snags. The strong current will also help us through the creek and push us right to the mouth of the cave. I know these waters well, my boy. You see, I’m not even rowing, it’s the current that’s doing all the work. Just look at this creek, Nico. It’s magic to the eye.”

Vasiliki gazed dreamily at their surroundings. He had indeed pulled up the oars and now let the current eddy them through sprays of seaweed toward the sandy beachhead. With the rising mist, the towering cliffs of Pontikos loomed eerily before them, encircling the indented crescent creek, although paths could be discerned on the pebbly strand, widening and snaking amidst the huge fissures and cavities of the cliffs. Tiny maritime parasols clung precariously off the jagged crags. The ruddy colours of the late afternoon bathed the whole scene in a marvellous fairy-tale aura. Nico sat mesmerised before the slightly rolling reflexions of the craggy palisades in the turquoise waters of the creek, over which his grandfather was now rowing prudently to avoid any collisions with the flat rocks that surged up here and there on the foamy wavelets. He envisioned himself on a page of A Thousand and One Nights, or on one in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island which he had just finished reading …

“There she is, Nico … the mouth of our cave. That’ll be our home for a few days.”

Suddenly Nico cried out: “Grandpa! Look, a seal on the rock, I heard her cry … There she is!”

Nico stood up at the bow to get a better look. “It’s a fat seal with tiny white eyes.” The seal squealed in delight and dived into the cool, clear waters. “What a beautiful seal, grandpa!” added an overjoyed Nico.

“She sure is, Nico. Now let’s do the same. We have to jump into the water to haul the boat on to the beachhead. Take off your sandals and roll up your trousers.”

“I’d love to dive like that fat seal,” Nico called out as he hauled away. “I’d be able to catch so many prawns and sea breams and …”

“Get a hold of the rope and tie it to a few of the trailing vines that criss-cross the beach,” broke in Vasiliki, rubbing his calloused hands. Then he dropped anchor. “Get our bags out of the dinghy, but leave the fishing gear inside.”

Nico gathered up their bed-rolls, firewood and spittle, carrying them into the cave. Meanwhile his grandfather busily cleared and smoothed the floor of the cave to make it comfortable to lie on and build a fire. “I hope she comes up again,” Nico said, listening to his echo.

“Who?” 

“The seal, grandpa.”

“She’ll come up. My father and I always saw her come up and dive back down.”

“Can seals live that long?” Vasiliki glanced at his curious grandson.

“Well, I’m not sure she’s the same one. It may be her baby.” After that rather enigmatic reply, Vasiliki vanished into the deepest shades of the cave in search of prawns caught in the many shallow pools of water. Nico sat on the strand watching their boat dance suavely upon the wavelets that lapped the shore like ripples of laughter. The sun was setting over Hydra. The seagulls were laughing and the cormorants crying, both now on the wing, rising from the darkening waters, lifting their wet wings, flapping them madly. Suddenly the seal jumped up again on to the flat rock with a joyous squeal. The foamy waves brushed against the flat rock, soundlessly. She dived back into them. A call from the cave! Vasiliki had netted dozens of small prawns and was now scooping them out of the pools.

“Nico, get the big pot from the boat. We’ll be having boiled prawns with goat cheese, olives and bread tonight.” Vasiliki appeared stirred by the idea.

No sooner said than done! Whilst Nico searched for the big pot, Vasiliki dug a small hole, filled it with dry wood bits and made a fire. They used bottled water to boil and drink since no drinking water was found on Pontikos. 

Nico and his grandfather ate a hearty meal that first night. Tired from their voyage, they spread out their bed-rolls and lay down in the silence of the dim, fire-lit cave. Nico used his anorak for a pillow. He observed the last plumes of smoke rising to the rocky ceiling where there, they fanned out, the wisps tracing weird configurations: shapes of birds perched upon gigantic cliffs, deep-sea fish and reptilic creatures all moving slowly … very slowly. Nico rubbed his exhausted eyes, the phantasmagoria gradually vanished into the black rock. The fire lowered, then died out …

Streams of orange rays broke into their dreamless sleep. Vasiliki awoke first: “Nico, go out and find some brush and underwood for our fire. Be careful on the paths between the boulders, there may be scorpions or snakes.”

Nico rolled out of his bed-roll, splashed his face with a bit of briny-scented seawater, then throwing a sack over his shoulder which he retrieved from the dinghy, set out in search of firewood. The agile boy had not been at it for long when he stopped dead in his tracks. On the strand lay a seagull shaking her orange legs, pecked at the reddening morning sky with her horny beak. He approached the bird carefully. She opened her eyes as if pleading for help. Vasiliki soon joined his grandson.

“What’s wrong with the bird?”

“She’s dying, grandpa.” Nico lamented. “Look, she can’t fly when she spreads her wings.” Vasiliki shook his head sadly and turned to leave.

“We got to get to the boat, my boy, the fishing will be good today.”

Nico cradled the seagull’s head in his hands then poured some seawater onto her beak. She shook her head violently, closed her eyes and lay still. The boy dug a hole in the warming sands, placed the dead bird gently in it then covered her with sand and pebbles. He erected a little mound on the burial spot. The gloom-filled boy retraced his steps to join his grandfather at the boat, his bag full of wood bits and dry brush.

“What’s wrong, Nico?” asked Vasiliki as they pushed the dinghy into the still waters.

“The seagull’s dead, grandpa. I buried her.”

Vasiliki eyes shone with warmth. “Seagulls die, my boy,” he mulled, waist deep in the creek. “Like us, we die too.”

Vasiliki took up the oars and rowed out towards the open sea. Pulling them in, he let the dinghy float gently on her own whilst he prepared the fishing lines.

“We’re not too far out, grandpa?” observed Nico, fixing his line with a plummet and baiting his hook with worms and not with pieces of fish as the fishermen of Hydra would always do much to the dislike of his grandfather.

“No … Have to keep that coastline in sight,” reminded Vasiliki. “These waters can change in a blink of an eye.”

Nico fixed his line and sent it spinning through the rod out into the choppy waters. He sat on the coil of ropes sniffing the pleasant morning breeze. The air smelt of flowers. He scanned the watery horizon where he felt overwhelmed by a strange sensation of encountering a primordial world when primitive men hunted, fished, built fires in caves … sang dirges to the dead. Would he chant a dirge for the dead seagull that night in the warmth of their cave fire?

Hours passed. Both stared dreamily into the sea as they held their rods steady, a sea so creamy, so milk-like. Now and then a slight turbulence, perhaps a whirlpool, tossed the dinghy from side to side.

“Do you see any mackerel?” Vasiliki asked, peering over the surface of the sea.

“I’m not sure if they’re mackerel or scad fish, grandpa,” answered the boy, tugging lightly at his rod.

“Well, the mackerel chase the scad, so you know that the mackerel are behind them.”

Nico nodded.

“Tell me about the seagull, Nico.”

Nico peered at this grandfather’s aging face, leathery from the wind and sun, at his deep, gimlet set eyes. “Which one, grandpa? The one I just buried or Dimitri’s?”

“Dimitri’s?” 

“Yes, remember Dimitri, he was one of my classmates … He had a seagull for a pet.”

“A seagull for a pet? That’s strange. Tell me about her.”

“She was a different kind of seagull. A domesticated seagull. She would fly up on to a rock whenever Dimitri and his father were out fishing. From that rock, she would observe them with her beady eyes. Then she would dive straight down to the boat but she never perched on Dimitri’s father’s side of it, only on Dimitri’s side. His father was a grouchy old man and the seagull never cared for him. Dimitri would throw her fishbones, picarels and other bait. His father would get angry, saying that bait was for fishing and not for that blasted bird ! Dimitri never listened to his father. He would just wave a hand and keep feeding his companion. They were an inseparable pair, you know. When Dimitri died of the flu the seagull flew off and was never seen again … »

“Where did she fly off to?” enquired Vasiliki, intrigued by this tale.

“Perhaps she flew to China, grandpa … Like the Nefeli[1] …”

“To China?” Vasiliki eyed his grandson thoughtfully.

“Yes, grandpa. Or to somewhere unknown, or at least not known to us.” Vasiliki bowed his head. They shook their rods : nothing yet …

The sun was high in the sky now. It warmed their bones and skin. Nico threw off his anorak. How beautifully the sunbeams bounced off the blue waters. They shimmered like the scales of a fish just caught on the line. From time to time, the gulls and the cormorants that glid over their heads swooped down and skimmed the surface of the white foam in search of scud or other schools of fish that were presently leaping at the surface. The birds certainly had more luck than our two fishermen. Plunging downwards, fluttering their huge wings, their graceful dives and surges hypnotised Nico. Meanwhile in the fathoms of the deep, millions of sea-creatures pursued millions others. The microscopic fish were swallowed up by the bigger fish, and in turn were swallowed up by even bigger fish! The whole lot of them were then completely disappeared in one enormous suction into the hollow vortex of the great whale. A great battle indeed was underway both in the inflamed sky and in the broiling sea. Nico felt enfolded in this chaotic struggle for life. Would he, too, be swallowed up along with his grandfather?

Nico shot a questioning glance at Vasiliki who suddenly broke the silence with cries of joy: “Ah ! Nico, here … a fish … two or three fishes!” Vasiliki, all agog, triumphantly displayed three flapping fish in his straw-weaved basket, their gills quivering silver in the intense sunlight. Nico, too, quite unexpectedly got lucky. Not only had he reeled in a mackerel, but also a big, white fleshy sea bream. He had at first lost his plummet, no doubt badly tied. But when Vasiliki showed him how to fix it properly the fish came to him as if the bait were a magnet.

“We’ll be having a hot-pot tonight, my boy,” rejoiced Vasiliki. “We’ll cook some vegetables with our catch. What do you think?”

Nico smiled. He thought it an excellent idea …That night when they had cleaned the fish, Vasiliki boiled them with an assortment of vegetables brought over from Hydra, especially egg-plant, red-pepper and tomato.

“How was the meal, Nico?” asked his grandfather when they had finished eating.

Nico, who had been listening to the moaning wind, turned to him: “Delicious, grandpa. But you know, I thought of the dead seagull all day when fishing. She should have been diving and catching fish with the others.” He paused a moment. “Grandpa, what did you think of my story?”

“What story?”

“About Dimitri’s pet seagull.”

“A good story, my boy. A beautiful story. A very beautiful one.” Vasiliki puckered his lips. “Why do you keep thinking about the seagull you buried ? Do you want to give her a name, like your boat that sailed to China?” Nico stared at his grandfather rather perplexed.

“No grandpa, I have no name for her. She’s gone far away … like the Nefeli … to another land …”

“We’ll build another boat together,” Vasiliki promised. “A bigger boat. The biggest of them all. But the seagull,” he hesitated. “The seagull has flown off to a land where we can never see her again. I’m sure it’s a beautiful land, like where the Nefeli is now on her way.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see that land, grandpa?”

“Well … not right now, my boy. Right now I’d like to close my eyes and sleep. Tomorrow we’ll be on the sea the whole day again. They’re biting out there.”

And that is exactly what the old man did …

The last embers of their fire cast undulating shadows on the walls of the cave. Vasiliki was sound alseep, snoring lightly. Nico strolled to the beachhead. The moon had risen, girt by a rosy halo. Darkened seagulls glided in and out of the misty moonbeams. They danced an eerie dance. Nico perceived Hydra’s beacon far, far off at the south-west tip of the island. A steamer passed over the sleepy waters heading for Hydra, her lights burning bright against the umber orb of the horizon. Nico thought of the Nefeli on her long voyage to China. Slicing unmanned, captainless over unchartered seas, like Dimitri’s pet seagull on the wing, perhaps she too flying towards unknown lands now that her master had long since departed. The seagull he had buried could also be flying off to some mysterious place, a paradise for seagulls where she could fly and fly and fly without a thought of ever diving for fish or of escaping the hunter’s gun. A peaceful place…

Nico’s grandfather told him that tomorrow night they would be eating mussels with lemon juice; a real regale his grandfather had beamed. With bread and olives, too. Olives always go so well with mussels, he said. Nico smiled. Why they always go so well together his grandfather never offered a reason. But Nico believed him. Nico believed everything that his grandpa told him, even about the monsters of the sea that swallow boats and their crews. Perhaps the Nefeli had been swallowed up by one of those monsters.

Nico stared at the shadowy moon. A slight wind began to groan. The dinghy tossed gently, the scraping of the pebbly strand under her bow prompted a rather strange rhythm like a saw sawing wood.

Nico strolled back into the dark cave. The fire had gone completely out. Nothing could be seen, only heard: his grandfather’s snoring, the seagulls screaming, the wavelets lapping, the dinghy scraping … He loved his grandfather. Yes, they would build a great, majestic boat, sturdier than the Nefeli — an unsinkable boat, one that would voyage all around the world like Magellan’s galleon. He would name the boat Mytho … Yes, that would be a fitting name for such a beautiful boat.

Nico stared at his unseen snoring grandfather. He would have liked to ask him why olives and mussels go so well together. And his grandfather would have probably answered: “Well my boy, it’s just a feeling I can’t really explain. But believe me, they do go well together.”

And Nico would have believed him. Would have accepted that answer as a perfectly acceptable answer …

Nico slipped into his bed-roll and immediately into a deep, deep sleep. He dreamed of seagulls on the wing, boats navigating on the high seas, underwater monsters with long, leathery tentacles chased by the great whale and caves full of gold and diamonds and other precious stones whose names Nico had not as yet learned but would surely ask his grandfather their names when he awoke.

[1] Read the story by clicking on this link.

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Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Stories

Nico’s Boat Sails to China

By Paul Mirabile

From Public Domain

Winter, together with the northern gales, reached the shores of Hydra, an island belonging to the group of Saronic islands in the Aegean Sea. On the north-eastern side of Hydra, save a few monks in two monasteries, few human beings had built their homes. Hoary pines and cypresses intertwined with other plants, providing shelter and shade for the gangs of dangerous feral cats that roamed amongst enormous, solitary rocks and deep precipices hunting for food. Weird, colourful birds built their nests in the crevices of the towering cliffs whose plateaus were carpeted with red poppies and violet cyclamen. It was a desolate landscape unfavourable to human existence, although it was told that certain ‘wild’ islanders did dwell in the porous caves of the cliffs sculptured by the winds and rains overhanging the foamy waters far below …

It was in the south where the islanders enjoyed a relatively decent living, when of course the fish and tourists were plentiful. Now, however, the bathing areas lay silent and the villas, lifeless. Winter was the time for fishing. The sailing dinghies, catamarans and rowboats that had been hauled in for repairs were once again seen bobbing up and down upon the choppy waves. Seabass abound, as well as sea bream and sardines. Brightly painted sailing dinghies brought fish uninterruptedly to the market. But deep in this particular winter, the fishermens’ nets held little catch, and the islanders had to resort to eating vegetables that survived the cold from their gardens, the bread from their ovens, and now and then a partridge or a quail shot by those who owned rifles. Fish could be purchased from other fishermen in the neighbouring islands. But they sold their catch at a dear price. 

Old Vasiliki was preparing his multi-pronged fishhooks. The nets that he had mended long ago had snapped and ripped again. Up till then, winter’s catch proved hopeless. He had scarcely earned fifty drachma. Vasiliki still had earnings from renting the second floor of his house to summer tourists, but those savings were slipping away on fishing material, goods from the shops or fish bought from the fishermen of the other islands, where apparently the catch was abundant. Nico, his grandson, had fallen ill that winter and medicine was dear. The poor boy had not been to school for over two weeks …

School and notebooks cost money, too. So be it. Tonight, Vasiliki would go out fishing, so he carried on straightening out his turkey-feathered multi-pronged fishing-hooks, mending the rotten fishing lines, changing the rusting hooks. If he could catch a lot of fish, he could buy a petrol lamp and more candles for the house, a pair of shoes and a woollen vest for Nico. He would buy Nico a book of sailors’ tales that his curious-minded grandson longed to read. He would also buy him a huge picture of a Spanish galleon that he could pin up on to the yellow painted wall of his tiny room.

Vasiliki went out fishing in the evenings. Nico never knew when his grandfather would return …

Every night the boy dreamed the same enigmatic dream in the absence of his grandfather. He stood at the helm of a beautiful boat whose name was written in bold black letters but which he could never read. Enormous waves continuously surged and battered the solid vessel. Then a sudden volley of rocks or missiles assailed him from all sides out of a rising mist, accompanied by a deafening din of hysterical screams and raucous shouts. From above, a huge white-crested wave was about to engulf him … Nico would be startled out of this recurrent dream, never understanding how he escaped the missiles, the monstrous wave and screams because at that very instant he was startled out of sleep by the flapping of the curtains against the paneless window and the slow, heavy footsteps of his grandfather returning from fishing. Vasiliki, smelling of the briny sea, stepped into Nico’s room.

The boy sat up in bed: “Did you catch any fish, grandpa?”

“No, the sea was empty of fish tonight.”

“Empty?”

“A sea monster has surfaced, Nico. It is eating all the fish in the sea.” Nico blinked his eyes in mistrustful wonder.

“Have you seen the sea monster, grandpa?” The exhausted Vasiliki offered no answer. He shuffled out of his grandson’s room and retired to his own.

Whether Vasiliki really saw a monster always remained a mystery to Nico. He had read about weird sea creatures with lamps on their heads in the inky darkness of the deep; read about shoals of huge fish that swallowed dinghies and rowboats whole. His father, Constantine, had been swallowed up along with his crew by those horrible creatures … so his grandfather narrated, sadly. His mother, Myrto, died a few months later of tuberculosis … or of a broken heart. Or both. They were in their early thirties …

Vasiliki and his wife, Nefeli, took their grandson in. They did their best to bring up the lonely, melancholic boy. Then Nefeli fell ill with fever and died soon after. Vasiliki buried his beloved wife at the neighbouring cemetery. All that the old man cherished now was Nico, his taciturn grandson.

Vasiliki owned a small, green, two-storey wooden house, a house that belonged to his father. Summer was not far off so he could again rent out the second floor to tourists and earn a few lepta or drachma.

In the small sitting-room where the flower-dotted wall-paper was peeling off the badly cut boards, he had nailed photos of his wife and daughter, now yellowing due to the humidity. Vasiliki’s home was hardly furnished, although he had made an effort to provide low sofas, wicker chairs and sturdy tables for his guests upstairs. He even built a shower for them, a luxury that he and Nico dispensed with. They washed either in the sea or directly from the wash-basins in the garden behind the house. But since no one occupied the two rooms upstairs, ever so often they would shower upstairs and from the windows look out at the sea. Presently, Vasiliki climbed the five steps to one of the rooms, parted the laced curtains of the recently washed window and looked out towards the sea, whilst he mended his net, sang songs, thought of Nico’s future. His warm eyes slipped from his mending to the brilliant blue waters of the Argolic Gulf. That boy was all he had. His treasure. When he thought of Nico he awoke from his day-dreaming and smiled. He had promised him long ago that they would build a small boat and send it navigating on the high seas, like a bottle thrown amid the waves, and whose destination would be known to no one, a horizonless destiny for that little boat.

Vasiliki sighed: “I have to keep an eye on Nico. Those nasty children from town always take the thump him at school. He’s not big enough to fight on his own.” Vasiliki took up a needle and began stitching Nico’s torn trousers. “I have to walk him home after school so he won’t go sleeping under the olive trees or on the beach where the schoolboys could knock him up.” Vasiliki wondered where his grandson had gone …

Nico stood under a plane tree in front of his grandfather’s house. He was busy making a boat. It wouldn’t be his first boat. But this one would be the boat of all boats ! A long-voyage boat, built for the broad, open seas … the remote and unchartered seas, a boat that would weather stormy waves, glide over placid rolls, sail alongside monstrous creatures of the deep, a boat without a flag, a nationless boat, yet unmanned by pirates or corsairs, a boat completely independent. Nico put his whole heart into this project, his whole imagination of what such a boat should be made of, and how it should be navigated.

“Nico?” cried down Vasiliki from the upstairs window.

“Yes, I’m here, grandpa.”

“What are you doing?”

“Making a new boat.”

“Another one?”

“The biggest and the best, grandpa. It’ll sail to the other side of the world … to China …”

“Tomorrow you must go to school, don’t forget. You can work on your boat after school.”

“Yes, grandpa. I’ll work hard in school.”

“By the way, what will you name your boat?” Nico thought for a moment. At first ‘Neptune’ came to mind, but he quickly changed it as his grandfather’s eyes swelled with pride and joy at his grandson’s aspirations and imagination.

“I’ll call her Nefeli, grandpa.”

Vasiliki gave Nico an odd look. He didn’t know whether to smile or cry. He murmured the name several times on his lips, slowly, intimately. The old man burst out laughing: “Nefeli! Nefeli!”  he shouted. “Your grandmother would have been proud to know that her name will navigate the four oceans of the earth, my boy. Don’t forget to prepare your things for school tomorrow. We’ll be having sardines tonight that I bought from Dimitri. He sold more than a dozen at half price.” And Vasiliki returned to his mending and stitching since the yellowish light of late afternoon allowed his eyes to do so …

Nico went to school the following morning, shuffling along the dirt-packed road. What a burden to acquire knowledge that he would never use in ‘real life’. Neither Nico’s classmates nor his teachers held any interest for him. His two weeks’ absence afforded him time to dream … to concentrate on his boat-building. The boys who crossed paths with him on the way to school never wished him a good morning, nor did they enquire about his health. He was ostensibly shunned by all and sundry, even several of his teachers took a dislike to him.

Nico shrugged his shoulders, sitting in the back of the stuffy classroom, heated by a pot-bellied stove, gazing out over the bungalows to the wide sea. He envisioned the decks of galleons gleaming white from a good scrub, their sails bellowing in the refreshing breeze. Nico filled his lungs with the fresh, clean, ocean air. Yes, only the sea afforded the boy a pleasure in life, along with, of course, the voice and affectionate gestures of his grandpa. All other things to him seemed dull, lifeless … empty.

The children in his class thought only of the tediousness and boredom of their school work and the silly games they played with or against each other to compensate for that tediousness and boredom. None had any project to impassion their lives. None envisioned a future further than the next day at school or in the market. Few went swimming in the bay, where he swam too. They shrank away from his boyish laughter splashing about in the water, avoiding his company completely.

When Nico was not day-dreaming in school he was busy reading or making boats — all kinds of boats. Cutter in hand, he whittled small sailboats and rowboats … even catamarans! Everyday he whittled a raft as he contemplated the steamers’ coming and going in the glimmering Aegean. But his next boat would be huge. A huge boat with a bridge, lower and upper decks, a hold for cargo, masts, sails, portholes and a crow’s nest. This boat would be the largest, the loveliest … and the sturdiest of them all. A boat which had never been built before by a fourteen year old boy. And that day came. Nico, the fourteen year old boat-builder had completed his dream boat. For him this boat meant the world. He felt his heart swell with pride and satisfaction. Vasiliki inspected his grandson’s remarkable vessel. It was painted marine-blue. At the bow he had painted the head of Neptune. He had even cut a hole in the starboard for the anchor to be weighed or dropped using a big fish-hook tied to a long, thin rusty chain. The deck had been sand-papered to a dazzling gloss. He equipped her with a four-cornered small jibe[1], as white as the flesh of a sea bream. He had taken great pains to whiten that piece of cloth of a sail, rubbing and scrubbing away with aqua fortis. It took him days to attain that candid sheen …

All the rigging on the bridge was fixed solidly to the wide deck by thin copper wires rising high above all the rest, held securely with copper wires screwed into the thick wood of the deck and reinforced with English twine. Portholes had been carved out on both the portside and starboard for the cabins, for although Nico’s boat would be captainless — unless he himself exercised this task– his imaginary crew would be like the Lilliputians that he had read of in Gulliver’s Travels. How he had enjoyed reading those stories of sea and island adventures … Nico had even cut and inserted pieces of broken glass he found scattered about the streets to window the portholes, which he polished to a shiny, brassy gleam.

When all had been fitted out properly, he painted the endearing name Nefeli in bold, black letters on her portside. Vasiliki stood in quiet admiration of his grandson’s months of hard labour. It was indeed a work of art. He embraced him. His grandson may not be the best of pupils, but he worked wonders with his hands. Someday he would be a great boat-builder, and not just a poor fisherman like his father and grandfather …

The rising sun peeked over the watery orb of the sea. It was Saturday. That day Nico launched his boat into the placid waters of the Argolic Gulf. Vasiliki accompanied him on this long-awaited day, eager to witness her maiden voyage. The Nefeli once launched, slid with ease. At first, the boat floated unsteadily on her portside. But when the wind picked up, she rose to her full splendour and ploughed through the clammy waters with amazing ease, all sails aswell. Nico let the spool of English twine slide quicker and quicker from its spool. It unravelled rapidly, but the boy had full control of the situation. The spool held hundreds of metres of twine.

The Nefeli skimmed over the wavelets like a shark racing towards its prey. Vasiliki stretched out on the pebbly shore to mend a torn net, eyeing both the Nefeli and his mending in mute jubilation. He thought of his daughter and how proud she would have been to see her son manœuvre his own hand-made boat. His grandson, too, jubilated, running to and fro along the shore to manœuvre the cruising vessel as she swayed to the rhythm of the breeze. Suddenly an easterly gale drove her towards the shore. Nico slackened the twine. At the same time, though, he pulled her away from some dangerous rocks and uprooted pines. Any collision might have caused great damage to the Nefeli. After all, it was only a little boat and the sea a powerful force that no one should underestimate. Two hours or so later, Nico pulled her in, and he and his grandfather returned triumphantly homeward to eat.

News of Nico’s remarkable boat reached every ear on that small island. People from the big town would come to the shore to watch this young boy of fourteen manoeuvre his vessel. As promised, Nico launched his boat only after school as soon as he had finished his homework. For weeks now, the Nefeli had withstood the brunt of several white-crested waves and a slight collision against the rocky part of the shore. All in all, Nico’s boat proved robust and his manoeuvring worthy of any captain of the sea.

One fine, sunny Saturday Nico, as always, launched the Nefeli near a large grove of pine trees. A slight south-easterly wind was blowing. The twine unravelled rather quickly, the boat lying on her side, her stern twisting and turning in the foamy waters like a fish’s tail. He pulled at the twine and managed to steady her route. Nico sighed in relief … Suddenly he heard shouts, cries and screams from behind him. A gaggle of children were racing along the shore targeting his boat with huge stones, one of which, incredibly enough, after hitting its target, propelled her further away from the volley of projectiles. Two or three boys, whom he recognised from his class, had sling-shots and were letting fly stones with great rapidity but not necessarily with great accuracy. Nico ran faster, pulled at the twine, quickening the speed of his boat. But there were too many boys, many of them running faster than him. More and more stones were slung or thrown, luckily off their mark. Nico thought to haul the boat back to shore near the rocky cliffs in the hope that the scoundrels’ pockets would be emptied of stones by then.

The poor boy, however, stopped in his tracks. The Nefeli seemed to navigate on her own, wind filling her sails, skimming high and mighty over the angered waves in spite of the deluge of catapulted missiles. Then in one tremendous volley four or five of the bigger boys hurled dozens and dozens of stones at the speeding Nefeli, some of which broke through portside, others splintered the bridge and still others burst into the jibe and crow’s nest.

Nico’s wonderful workmanship managed to stay afloat for a half hour before sinking to the bottom of the sea. The last thing that Nico saw of his boat were the bold, black letters of his grandmother’s name: Nefeli.

The children vanished into the pine groves as quickly as they had appeared …

Nico turned his back to the dramatic sinking of his vessel. Opening the gate to his grandfather’s front garden, he strolled up to him.

 Vasiliki, cleaning several fish and shrimp that he had caught the previous night smiled at the approach of his grandson: “So, how did she sail …?” He suddenly noticed that Nico hadn’t the boat in his arms. He frowned and lowered his eyes.

“She set sail for the other side of the world, grandpa. She’s in route to China. The English twine snapped and off she sped out of the gulf towards the open seas disappearing over the edge of the waters …”

“Well, like a bottle thrown into the sea, right? You never know where she’ll land. I just hope the sea monster won’t swallow her up like it does all the fish.”

“No, grandpa. Monsters don’t swallow boats only fish. Did you see the monster last night?”

Vasiliki shook his head. “Can’t say that I did.” He put down his knife and scratched his white beard: “I caught some prawns last night Nico, what the Spanish call gambas. We’ll have a marvellous meal just you and me tonight.”

“It’s always just you and me that eat, grandpa,” Nico reminded his grandfather.

Vasiliki pursed his lips: “How right you are, my boy.” The old man paused for an instant taking up his knife: “Will you build another boat?”

The boy kicked up the yellowing grass in the garden with his torn sandals. “Yes, grandpa, I’ll build another one.”

“Bigger than the one that just sailed to China?”

“Yes, much bigger.”

“What will you name her?”

Nico furrowed his brow. He looked sadly into his grandfather’s eyes: “I’ll name her Myrto.”

Vasiliki eyed his grandson affectionately. “I like that name Nico. It’s a beautiful name …”

“I like it too, grandpa.” And the boy shuffled off to his room …

[1]        Triangular staysails.

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Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Stories

The Unsuspecting Suspect

By Paul Mirabile

The Murderer by Edvard Munch
The Murder by Edvard Munch
Paintings by Edvard Munch(1863-1944). From the Public Domain

The murder had been carried out with frightening rapidity and meticulousness. Roger preened before the mirror with unconcealed content at his exploit, however gruesome. At last, those evil eyes would never again stare stonily into his. Those lascivious lips curl into a sardonic snarl and snicker. And those hairy nostrils, never again to open in surly disdain. Two years of planning, two years of mounting tension … of burning desire — now that the vile individual was dead and buried, buried deep where no one, not even the sniffing police hounds could sense his other worldly lot, Roger breathed in relief and slept soundly, without apprehension or fear: his revenge had been just.

His hands, however, still trembled after the strangulation, still ached after hours of digging, his mind still aflame with abominable delight. Roger hence decided to take to the road to lead a life of a vagrant, of a wandering non-entity whose secret would lie hidden deep in a heart cleansed of ardent expectancy. He needed no one, desired nothing, only to guard that titillating secret entombed securely within that cleansed heart. Why did he leave now since his victim would no longer polluted his existence ? Because of his vile but indispensable act ? No. Because Roger had never befriended one person since his arrival at that town, never sought to marry and have children, never wished to climb the social rungs of power and prosperity at his mediocre profession. He was a person not without qualities, mind you, but whose indifference to those qualities confined him to the life of a unimaginative loner.

This being said, Roger always felt an instinctive drive for adventure, to strike out on his own so to speak, a picturesque wanderer, but at the same time terribly frightened of it. An adventurer fearful of adventure, however paradoxical that may sound! After the salutary slaying, he now experienced an élan that would send him forth into the wide horizons of the world as a mendicant, living from day to day with a knapsack for companionship, few thoughts of the future and certainly none of the past … Or so he wished …

So the fearless adventurer took to the road to experience a loneliness which he had voluntarily chosen, and this, regardless of the loathsome deed. Roger envisioned his departure merely as a reader who begins another chapter of a long novel.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn … How many seasons had come and gone ? He walked or hitch-hiked, sleeping under the stars or in abandoned, gutted homesteads, dreaming of vigilante squads at his heels, he hiding behind thick bushes or red tinted rocks, eyes scanning the horizon but never settling on his. Would the heavy rains drive the slain body upwards from its underworld plot for all eyes to see? To see and feast on the merciless truth? He dreamed these disturbing dreams, yet they never disrupted his slow but steady gait … never prompted misgivings. At times, the wanderer’s heart, albeit cleansed, longed for the silence of his act to break out of its soundless vault. Roger soon realised that his act was causing him an inexplicable sorrow, a sorrow that accentuated the mystery of his wanderings. Because in spite of his errantry he suffered the deed in lonesome insufferable suffering, the only person in the world to bear the secret of such an odious act. Had Roger fooled himself ? Had he been duped by his own vanity and puffy aplomb ?

He strode ever onwards, none the less, picking wild berries and figs during the day, laying his head on his knapsack or on lumps of grass on balmy nights. The brisk silvery air would, at times, revive his sunken spirits. His gait then would become more springy, more cheerful. There, in the violet blue above, a flock of kingfishers glided so majestically. He had an urge to join them on their migrating route. He arched his neck backwards; “Is the road not better than the tavern?” he wondered looking at the vanishing flock. As the last bird disappeared behind a cloudlet.

One warm spring evening as he shuffled along a dusty country road in an unknown shire, he was overtaken by a motley gaggle of beggars. They were singing bawdy songs of better days; days upon the bland or furious surface of the seas, of chopping wood in the mountainous forests, of pounding fists on the tables of taverns where beer and hydromel poured out of heady kegs. Roger bit his lower lip; these lewd ballads reminded him of an individual whom he had long despised and had disposed of. Yes, there was no doubt that he carried out what was absolutely essential to his well-being.

As soon as these songs died out, the beggars began arguing about something or someone, gesticulating wildly in their tattered garments, stomping their shredded boots. They stopped, hailing to Roger. One bent, glassy-eyed old fellow stepped forward and pulled at his sleeve, pressing him to bear witness on a vital issue: “Hey governor, you’ve heard the news about a murdered bloke rising up from his grave?” Roger suddenly stopped in his tracks.

The question baffled him. He shrugged his shoulders. “You see mates, he don’t know nothing about it!” the beggar cried out through rotting teeth, turning to his companions.

“Blimey, if he ain’t a halfwit,” coughed another. “Halfwit or just wanting to keep it all for himself.”

“The whole thing is rot, I say,” grumbled another, patting Roger on the shoulder. “Don’t worry governor, they don’t know what they’re on about.”

“The rains brought it up, I’m saying,” rejoined the first beggar, wheezing through his nose. “Strangled, dragged and buried he was by a pair of strong hands.” And the beggar took a covert glance at Roger’s strong hands. “The poor sod dragged like a sack of potatoes then thrown into a deep pit,” he stuttered, glancing harder at Roger’s hard hands.

“They’ll get the blighter for sure now,” added the still coughing beggar whose hair lay sticky on his broad shoulders. “They’ll hang him high. All the evidence is there.”

“What evidence?” Roger managed to ask, a bit distraught at all these insinuations, desperately trying to conceal his mounting fear.

“What evidence? What evidence?” he asks. They all howled in concert like a pack of wolves. “It’s written all over the corpse. Written in the stars, too. Just look up and read the evidence for yourself, mate.”

Roger involuntarily lifted his eyes to the darkening heavens where the stars were emerging in twinkling clusters. Was he able to decipher their twinkling? Were the beggars able to? When he lowered his eyes the whole pack had vanished round the bend of the road … Or so he thought. He wondered: “Was it a dream? An hallucination?” Roger sighed and moved on, glancing up every now and then up at the crowding stars.

Four weeks later as a harvest moon rose over some low-lying mountains, he trudged up to a cottage whose roof of browning straw and unsmoking chimney bespoke poverty. About to knock, his hand remained motionless mid-air: a woman’s voice reached his ears, a voice coarse but melodious, each syllable articulated in a maternal tone. The voice was reciting lullabies or children’s bedtime rhymes. A veil of sadness moistened his eyes. His mother, too, sang or recited nursery rimes and poems whenever her spirits had been dampened by grave or sombre events. And Roger mused: “Was the deed all that needful?” He knocked, his spirit traversed by qualms of uncertainty. A huge fat woman dressed in a thick woollen robe opened the door slowly. She stuck her red puffy face out: “Well, what do you want, tramp?”

“I’m down to the bone, good woman. Just a bit of bread and some water will do me. I’ve been on the road for so long.”

“Hungry hey! Had a good taste of the frost? And I suppose without a halfpence to your name. Well, come in and sit yourself at the table. I’ll give you some soup and bread … then off you be. I’m not particularly fond of vagrants.” The creaking of the door disturbed Roger who obsequiously side-stepped the fat, straightforward woman and sat down at a very long, knotty, oaken, wooden table. The ashes in the hearth lay cold like the atmosphere of the cottage … like the cold, dry voice of his host. Everything, cold as a grave …

She served him cold soup and rancid black bread. Roger ate with trembling hands, but without any real appetite. His head spun round; he felt estranged from his surroundings and from himself for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp. The woman wiped her huge, knotty hands on a greasy apron observing her ‘guest’ suspiciously: “Had enough? Want some more? You eat like a prisoner eats before execution.”

Roger gave her a strange look, but remained speechless. She scrutinised the speechless tramp: “Did you hear the news, they finally caught that lunatic who killed the real estate agent? I hope he gets what he deserves,” she rasped.

Roger shot her a terrified look: “Impossible!” he screeched, his mouth full of black bread.

“Why impossible? The bloody sod wasn’t very clever; he left so many fingerprints. He even left his calling card on the body. A real estate agent, they say he was. Probably a settling of scores.” Roger’s face went a deathly white.

“Did you see his photo in the papers?” Roger squeaked.

“I don’t read the dailies. It was the neighbours over the hill who told me. You act as if you know all about it. Did you know the victim?” Roger said nothing. “What’s up, cat got your tongue?” The fat woman eyed him leerily out of her beady eyes. “Your eyes tell me you have something heavy on your heart, something to hide,” she probed, a bit intrigued by the paleness of the tramp’s face, paling whiter and whiter.  “Your lips move and move but no sound comes out, and you squirm in your seat like a worm on a fish-hook.”

The woman read Roger all too well; he, indeed, had fallen into a sudden whirlpool of words, repeating events of his childhood under his breath, vainglorious events and despicable lies. His voice then rose to a pitch that shocked his host. She suspected him of evil doing.

“You know mate, if they hadn’t caught that killer, I would say that you had strangled and buried the real estate agent.” She moved towards him, arms akimbo, beetling her brows.

“Strangled? Buried?” Roger pushed back his chair, he suddenly felt very tired. His thoughts whirled about in his head, chaotically. He stood, arms limp at his sides.

“I have to sleep,” he managed to stutter.

“Words are sharper than swords, hey! And you’ve said too much already. Your thoughts are impure, weighed down by some great burden. I don’t want anything to do with you. Go out and sleep in the haystack. But I want you off my property by morning, right?”

Roger thanked the fat, beady-eyed woman and stumbled out of her cold cottage into the colder air. The harvest moon had risen high, orangey-brown and round. He had taken a half loaf of bread with him. “How could they have caught the killer?” he murmured. “I’m the killer! I’m the killer!” He checked himself, listening to the wind.

“I forgot to fill my gourd.” Roger turned back but the cottage had disappeared. The haystack, too, was nowhere to be seen. He sat down, his back against an oak tree. “Must have lost my way,” he whispered to the oak tree.

The cold wind bit through his cotton vest. The silence of the forest frightened him, penetrated the uneasy thoughts of his confused mind. Would his victim’s grave become the mirror of his ever-lasting reflection? No! He was not to be intimidated. His act was a righteous one; how long had that individual plagued his dreams … poisoned his waking existence? An act of faith! Yes, that’s it, it was an act of faith. Roger rubbed his blood-shot eyes.

The eyes of the forest were upon him, the eyes of the animals, the trees and other night creatures ; large, owlish eyes that crouched behind thick bushes and gnarled trees. Relentlessly they followed his every move. He contemplated the moon’s valediction behind the dark, wooded hills then finally fell asleep…a very restless sleep …

The morning dew dripped off his long, unwashed hair, beard and foul-smelling clothes. His muscles ached. Roger felt wretched. He nibbled on some black bread, then set out to find a path that would lead him to a village or town. Hours passed. The sun, like his lies and vainglory, lay heavy on his bowed shoulders … on his furrowing brow, dripping with perspiration and weighed down his worn-out footfalls. Roger stopped abruptly.

He heard the tinkling of goat or sheep bells to his left. The tinkling was music to his ears; it brought an unexpected joy to his fatigued mental and physical state. The tinkling was then accompanied by snatches of a young chanting voice; pastoral verses intermingled with the tinkling which created a sort of contrapuntal rhythm. Roger experienced an estranged longing to relive his childhood, so comforting, so filled with maternal attention and love. Had he really undertaken that horrible deed? Had his hands stirred up the dust of such an unforgiving reality? At that moment, to his right he espied a large grassy pasture dotted with bleating sheep and goats. And there was a shepherd boy, no older than thirteen. “Perhaps he has some cheese and milk,” he thought excitedly.

Roger limped over the thick grass towards the hobbling boy who now approached, tapping his staff in rhythm to Roger’s hastening stride. Roger put up a trembling hand: “Good day shepherd. I’m down to the bone. Might you have a bit of cheese and bread for a poor mendicant?”

The shepherd boy, squint-eyed and long-haired, stroked one of his goats without answering. The boy was barefoot. He sized up the medicant and pronounced in a reproachful tone: “You don’t look like a sponger, sir.” Roger, taken aback by the boy’s bluntness, smiled sheepishly, avoiding his cross, roving eyes.

“How so?”

“Your face and hands tell me you’re not a sponger, that’s all. I’d say you’re a townsman.” Roger stood dumbfounded; he couldn’t quite fathom what the lad was on to.

“So you won’t give me some cheese and bread?”

“Of course I will, but stop playing the sponger. You need not beg, just ask.” And the boy handed Roger a large slab of goat’s cheese and bread. 

He watched Roger eat the food with voracious grunts and groans, then asked him warily: “Did you hear about the killer … they freed him … the bloke who murdered the real estate agent?” Roger stopped munching.

“Freed ? Well, I’m glad to hear it. Then it wasn’t him after all who had killed that poor man.”

“No, it wasn’t him at all, sir. Do you know why?” Roger certainly did, but gestured indifferently that he hadn’t the faintest idea.

The shepherd lowered his squint eyes then chanted in a strange, fey voice: “The eyes, sir, the eyes are the windows of the soul. Through them all has been engraved, every word and deed all written bold. They are read like the stars by whose glitter stories are told. So put an end to your roaming days and come in from the cold.” The boy pointed his staff at Roger: “You are the murderer, sir ; the double-tongued wanderer who has senselessly misplaced the guardian of his heart and the shepherd of his thoughts.” The boy fell silent and began to caress his goat.

Roger felt faint; he wavered back and forth like a leaf clinging limply to its life-giving branch.

“I don’t understand you shepherd: guardian of the soul, shepherd of thoughts? Am I too ignorant to understand or are you having me on?”

The shepherd stared at Roger without compassion: “Like the shepherd who guards his herd, you are the guardian of your heart. Keep it simple, innocent of blood-letting, base defilement and scathing lies. Innocent like a child’s.”

“But if it has been contaminated?” Roger interrupted in a hushed voice.

The shepherd dropped his eyes, still caressing his goat. He replied : “Thoughts are like sheep; you must caress them and not let them wander into the clutches of wolves.”

“Wolves? What wolves?” All these enigmas troubled Roger dearly. The boy tapped his staff to the rhythm of the wind that had been steadily picking up, tinkling the bells of the herd animals.

“Those who wander in packs and feast upon the lone and parasitic sponger,” came the boy’s blunt reply.

“I only seek freedom, laddie. Freedom!” Roger said in a strident voice at a loss to grasp the shepherd’s intentions.

“Freedom from what, sir? Society? Your murderous hands? A bad conscious? Or free to be doomed? Doomed is true freedom.”

“That is a play on words,” the wanderer snapped scornfully.

“Is it ?”

A soft, silky evening veil mantled the wind-swept pastureland. The shepherd boy turned away, chanting a tune alien to Roger’s ears, but whose solemn undertone caused him to shudder. He suddenly turned round and shouted through the wind: “Stop bleating about the countryside like a lost sheep. You should know all this yourself. The murder that you have committed is like wind ripping through the weeping willows, a storm over the desert sands, a tempest upon the open seas. Right?”

Roger, mouth agape, could not reply to those metaphorical images as the shepherd hobbled away with his goats over the brow of a grassy hill.

Four more seasons passed in cheerless roaming …

Then one summer day, as lightning flashed and thunder boomed across the heavens, heavy rains pounded the parched earth. Roger was forced to find shelter in the dens of animals, cowering in the corners, petrified by the sudden lightnings, booms and downpours. He had never witnessed such a mystifying spectacle! Compunction pricked his heart with twinges of joy and grief, anger and jubilation, pleasure and remorse. Had the rains really lifted the corpse from its pit? Had the eyes that followed his every step penetrated the mask of apathy, the layers of indifference, the veils of contemptible aloofness? Perhaps he had never killed that real estate agent after all. Then the occult twinges and tugging made him doubtful while the lightning lit the heavens and the thunder resounded over the downs and through the dells. Was he really guilty of what he believed he had whole-heartedly accomplished, or simply pitied his empty, hapless existence?

One star-filled night when the storms had abated, Roger returned and slept in the same grassy pastureland where the shepherd boy had tended his gentle herd. Alas, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Roger felt terribly alone. And yet, he slept so soundly that night in the shepherd’s pasture; dreams of staring eyes, rising bodies, and he crouching in terror behind bushes or boulders had not plagued his slumber. A dreamless night the wanderer spent. A night without colours, without sounds, without memories … A dark night, the darkest of all nights …

So, waking refreshed, he left that green bed, glowing, strong and free like the morning sun rising from behind the dark surrounding hills … 

*

The Dunghill Daily News obituaries announced that real estate agent Roger Snider died of a heart attack at his home at the age of forty-five most probably in his sleep. On the following page, the usual, daily bulletin urged the good residents of Dunghill to provide any information about another real estate agent, Ralph Richardson, who had disappeared four years ago without leaving a word either with his family or with his friends. If anyone had any information about his disappearance they were asked to contact the local police.

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Paul Mirabile is a retired professor of philology now living in France. He has published mostly academic works centred on philology, history, pedagogy and religion. He has also published stories of his travels throughout Asia, where he spent thirty years.

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