By Paul Mirabile
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.
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