| Partly Greek |
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| Author: | Miltiadis Hatzopoulos | |
| Rights sold: | Greek | |
| Genre: | Novel | |
| Number of pages: | 356 | |
| Edition: | 1 | |
| Editor: | ||
| Series: | ||
| ISBN: | 978-960-05-1410-0 | |
| ISSN: | ||
| Publishing company: | Hestia Verlag, Athen | |
| The year of publishing: | 2009 | |
| Origin Country: | Greece | |
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Chapter III (pages 67-80) The Cistern All that summer Dimitri observed his British friends much as if he were the ethnologist of an unknown native tribe, and he tried to make sense of them, but without any great success. He had to admit that, unlike Tim from his early childhood years, his friends now didn't come across as superior or indifferent. Dimitri felt included. Anthony greeted him with a smile whenever they met and would happily sit down next to him and read a book, especially now that his old school-friend Johnny had become so stuck on Sarah. Joan and Ellie were eager to dance with him, but dancing was the only opportunity he got to see or speak to them alone. The rest of the time they seemed totally absorbed in one another. The most human of them, at least by Dimitri's standards, was a brunette called Sarah. But her exclusive relationship with Johnny put her out of reach as well. One aftemoon, while out for a walk, Dimitri met her on her own, heading down towards the chapel above the harbour, where the English held their services. Sarah had on a simple print frock and wore a scarf about her head. With her black hair, honey-coloured eyes, dark, sun-tanned skin and strong, shapely legs, a passer-by could easily have mistaken her for a Cypriot village girl. He invited her for a coffee but she answered no, she had to go to evensong and she was already late, but she would be glad if he would come over the next morning, to the "Oleanders", for a coffee there and a dip in the cistem they had in the garden. Dimitri accepted without hesitation and listend carefully to her instructions on how to find the villa. Turning back towards the hotel he met his father, who had come back from Nicosia for the weekend bringing with him an edition of `The Lives of the Troubadours'. Dimitri had it ordered from France at Roustem's Bookshop and had been anxiously awaiting it. So that night he decided not to go out with the others to the Club, but to stay in and enjoy his new acquisition. After supper, when his friends had gone, and his father and uncies were sitting down to play bridge with the Neophytou, Dimitri took himself off to a table a little apart and started to read, and to try to translate the short narratives into something resembling medieval Cypriot. He began with the life of his favourite Jaufre Rudel. Jaufre Rudel of Blaya was indeed a very noble lord and was the prince of Blaya. And he fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli, without having seen her, because of the praises he had heard of her from the pilgrims who came back from Antioch. And he wrote for her many poems with good music but simple words. And from the arge to see her he donned the cross and took to the sea. And he fell ill on the boat and was taken to Tripoii, to an inn, as if he were dead. And this was made known to the countess, and she came to him, to his bed, and took him in her arms. And he knew that she was the countess, and recovered then his hearing and his senses, and praised God that he had maintained him alive long enough to see her. And thus he died in her arms. And she buried him with great honour in the Hospital of the Templars. And then, on that very day, she took the veil because of the great pain that she had for his death. Dimitri knew that in all likelihood the "Life" was pure fiction, probably inspired by the best known troubadour's song, which begins "Lancan li jorn son lonc en mai". But knowing it did not stop him from envying a perfect death in the arms of his beloved and he was not sure what to admire most, the truly blind love of the poet for a mistress he had never seen, or her singular response to the love of a suitor whom she is seeing for the first time. If she did become a nun, it would be because she realised that she would never find love like this again, and that such measureless devotion would only be possible with God. Could there ever be a girl, Dimitri wondered, who might be able to give back to him the measureless devotion that he knew burned inside him? It was there just waiting to be given to the one who might be ready to receive it. His old girlfriends admired the manly beauty of actors and footballers whose photographs they had pinned up in their rooms. And yet both Eudoxia and Aspasia were preparing to mang some serious young man who would offer them security and a position in society. It would not be fair to say that they lacked wildness or passion, but their wildness was about fun, dancing and singing, while their passion, Aspasia's anyway, was all for Greece and freedom. He did not detect any inclination in them to be consumed by love. And the English girls he went about with even less so. Joan and Ellie could not care less about knowing the heart of any young man, and it was inconceivable that Sarah could see anything at all in Johnny beyond an athletic and admittedly very beautiful body. "But why was she going to church on that evening?" was the question that came into his head at the recollection of Sarah. She was staying at the "Oleanders" with her younger brother - no adult there to be obeyed or gratified by her going to church. With this question in his mind Dimitri closed the "Lives of the Troubadours", went over to the Bridge table to say goodnight to his father, his uncies and, from as far away as politeness would allow, to Jenny and Mr Neophytou, and then he went up to his room. There he opened up his map of Cyprus, which in one corner had a largescale map of the Eastern Mediterranean, and looked for Tripoli. When he had reckoned that it was a hundred miles from Larnaca he decided that it would not be difficult to go there one day and ask for the whereabouts of the "Hospital" of the Templars and then to worship at the shrine of that great martyr to love, Jaufre Rudel. With that he lay down on his bed, put out the bed-side light and let himself imagine what would be the manner of his worshipping. He was too agitated to get to sleep, and when he finally did it was filled with dreams. The most recent of them still played about in the morning light that woke him. He saw himself lying dead on the hotel bed, with the Countess of Tripoli bending over him. Dimitri, or rather his soul, which floated about somewhere near the ceiling, attempted to discern her face, but he was bothered by a white veil which obscured her from her head down to her neck and to her waist. Whenever he moved to find a better vantage point, the countess turned her face in the opposite direction, so that his field of vision was constantly impeded by the white veil, concealing the identity of his beloved. Dimitri rose quietly so as not to wake his father, he washed his face in the basin and went downstairs for breakfast, but all the time the sense of disappointment never left him. The gods had compassionately harkened unto him and had answered his impatient prayer - yes, there was indeed a girl who could return his boundless love. But the gods, who also like to tease humans, had stopped him from seeing the visage of this girl, so that he would not be in a position to recognise her, if he met her. Dimitri longed to share this strange experience with someone. Maybe Laita, he thought; but then the Neophytou, all apart from Johnny, came down in a crowd for breakfast. They were about to set off an an outing to the Monastery of St Andrew, where they wanted to take Sarah's brother, whose namesake the saint happened to be. This would preclude any opportunity for a private conversation with the only member of the family in whom he could confide. There was no point in waiting about. Laita would not be back before evening and the others, Johnny, Ellie and Joan, were completely out of the question when it came to sharing his innermost thoughts and dreams. So he got his bathing-costume and towel and put them in his khaki army shoulder-bag, along with the Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot, and just after nine he set off for the Villa Oleanders. On his way past the harbour he remembered his encounter with Maria. It was only three weeks ago, and yet it seemed to have happened in another life. Following Sarah's directions to the letter, he passed the castle on his left, and came before a government building. On the outside wall by the entrance and sentry-box was affixed a board with photographs. Probably wanted terrorists. One of them looked familiar, so he went closer to see better and read: PRIZE £250 The police are enger to trace the whereabouts of the person photographed and with name and distinguishing features given below. He is wanted in connection with violent acts of terrorism involving explosives both in Nicosia and elsewhere on the first of April 1955 and on subsequent days. Underneath was a photograph of a young man of 20 with dark curly hair, heavy eyebrows, chestnut hair and sharp features. His face exuded a confident virility but also a sense of calm. Dimitri suddenly remembered a man he had met with Laita near the cemetery in Akanthou. But that person must have been twenty-five or thirty, whereas this photograph was of a young man with a white shirt and tie and a dark jacket, looking like a pupil on his last day at secondary school. And besides it lacked the thick black moustache that had made such an impression. Dimitri carried on reading out of curiosity and took in the description under the photograph: Gregory Pieri Auxentiou from Lysi (Famagusta district) is 35 years of age, height 5 feet and 6 inches, slight build, black hair, dark complexion, with a thin black moustache. He was seen wearing a suit of brown cashmere. He has been working as a taxi-driver. This person left his home on 31st March 1955 and has not returned since. There followed instructions to any would-be informers for the collection of their reward. Underneath was the signature of the Chief of Police, and lastly threats against anyone who might dare to tamper with the announcement. The added information heightened Diinitri's confusion instead of clarifying matters. Of course it explained that the photograph was an old one and it mentioned the moustache, which however had been anything but thin! But the man he had seen was not exactly 35. And what was the point of saying that he wore a brown cashmere suit? The unknown man at Akanthou wore a white shirt and khaki trousers, just like plenty of others at the panegyri. Who would wear cashmere in the middle of summer? But Dimitri had the more perplexing problem of the dream on his mind. He decided for the sake of argument that the man he had seen was a younger brother of the wanted one, and continued on his way. He passed the hospital and turned right down a side-street. At the second cross-roads stood a two-storied house, half-hidden by a newly white-washed garden-wall and a row of cypress trees. Inside the garden a forest of oleanders announced the fact that he had arrived. A green car was parked before the wrought-iron gate, which stood open. A paved footpath led on to marble steps and the entrance of the house. To the right and left Dimitri saw uneven clumps of oranges, lemons, fig-trees, oleanders, roses and jasmine, and all along the length of the garden wall stood pines and cypress trees. Somewhere from the bottom of the garden there came the sound of running water filling a tank. The house itself was a pale terracotta pink, which looked well against the faded green of the window shutters. Dimitri knocked on the door with the brass door-knocker. The servant who opened to him informed him that Miss Sarah was at the cistern and that, if he would like to, he could go up and change and put on his swimming things. Dimitri let the woman lead him up to the first floor, by means of a wooden staircase. There, having shown him into a high-ceilinged room, simply furnished wich a metal bed, a large mirror and some push matting, she left him alone in the half-light, since the green shutters were closed to protect the spacious room from the burning heat of the sun's rays. Dimitri closed the door and got undressed. In the mirror the reflection of a young man with a well-proportioned body, tanned by the sun, boosted his confidence. He left the clothes he had taken off an the bed, put on his swimming trunks and went downstairs. The servant directed him into the kitchen, opened the back door and showed him the footpath leading to the cistern. Dimitri found Sarah stretched out on a towel in the shade of a fig-tree, drying off while she read. When she got up to welcome him, the front of her wet bathing costume slipped down to reveal two breasts made pert by their contact with the wet material which Sarah, letting the book fall from her hand, hurried to cover up. `Sorry to welcome you like this' she said in English, and still sitting she turned her back to him and continued - 'Could you please button up my straps?'. Dimitri leaned over her and with a movement as steady as he could make it, given the agitation aroused in him by the unexpected vision, took the two straps from her fingers and buttoned them up cross-wise on her back. Then, deliberately avoiding encountering her face to face, he ran towards the cistern, climbed hurriedly up the metal step-ladder and dived into its waters. The contact with the unexpectedly chilly surface froze his body. To overcome the shock of it and to warm up he started to swim as fast as he could. In eight strokes he reached the opposite wall of the cistern. There he turned on his back and started to move with the same force back to where he had dived in. His head came up against something soft. It was Sarah's body which she had allowed to slip into the water of the cistern without Dimitri noticing it amidst all the splashing and flapping of his rapid movements. The boy stopped himself and started to say sorry, when he felt first the palms of Sarah's hands and then the soles of her feet against his shoulders, pushing him down forcefully towards the bottom of the surprisingly deep pool. In his effort not to go wider he raised his hands and tightened his fingers around the girl's ankles, dragging her down with him into the weedy bed of the cistern, from where with one kick he shot up towards the surface, with Sarah grabbing onto his trunks. He took a deep breath and was about to ask her for some explanation for the idiotic prank which had nearly drowned him. But when he saw her laughing face and heard her bell-like laughter either he lost heart or he didn't want to seem unable to take a joke, so he restricted himself to a half-hearted smile. `Come on now, don't be cross. Come on, to make up for it I'll rub your back, said Sarah, and true to her word, as soon as they had got down from the step-ladder, she took her towel and started to rub him vigorously. Dimitri decided to make the most of the situation. He lay down flat and gave himself up to the young girl's attentions. `I was afraid of coming too early, but you have been ready for hours. How is it that you got up so early?' asked Dimitri. `I got up early because I had to wake up my brother, who was going out with the Neophytou, and because I went to sleep early'. `Ok but didn't you go out on Friday evening?' `No, I stayed at home.' `And Johnny?' `I don't know what Johnny did. Perhaps you don't know that we broke up.' Dimitri hesitated a while and asked monosyllabically, 'Why?' `If you insist I'll tell you why, but I'm afraid that you won't understand'. `Try and I shall attempt to.' `Because he told me that he'd fallen in love with me.' Dimitri was silent and waited uncertainly for her to go on. `You see that you don't understand?' 'It is true that I do not, but you could certainly explain it to me'. `Dimitri, I'm not yet twenty years old. It's not even two years since I finished school. I'm in Cyprus for the holidays. In a month I go back to England. What would be the sense in letting Johnnie, a boy of seventeen-eighteen years old, fall in love with me, and worse still for me to fall in love with him.' `I can understand that,' replied Dimitri and carried on somewhat haltingly, `but then...?' `But then what did I want with him, you want to say? I wanted to have fun, I wanted to have a partner to go dancing with, to go for outings with him, to play tennis with him. I wasn't looking for a husband.' Dimitri did not know how to go on. `Ah Dimitri, you are so young and innocent..' `Young I may be, but not innocent. Since you are provoking me, I will go on. Then, if you did not want Johnny either for a husband or a lover, why did you go... further with him?' `I beg your pardon Dimitri, I didn't mean to offend you, but with the up-bringing they give you here...or rather not just here...with the upbringing that's generally given certain truths are deliberately kept hidden.' `What kind of truths?' `That, for example, women don't differ from men as much as people say they do. I am certain that you believe that, unlike men, women are not interested by the physical but only by the emotional side of love, that they don't have desires themselves, but that they are making some kind of concession, when they give themselves to men. That's why you feel guilty about your desires - and even more when you act on them - and an obligation to make honest women of your victims and compensate them either with emotions or with money or with marriage. My dear Dimitri, since you would like me to be honest with you, I'm obliged to tell you that that happens to be a big and under the circumstances useful lie, which passes through the centuries from generation to generation; in fact women do have desires and enjoy equally, if not more than men, as Teiresias shows in Ovid's Metamorphoses, the fleshly side of love. And so for me Johnny is a beautiful boy, a welcome companion at the sea side and on the dancefloor, but nothing more. If he finds pleasure in my arms as much as I do in his, why should we deprive ourselves of such mutual enjoyment? But if we attempt to justify this natural and mutually compatible pleasure with groundless emotional complications, things become dangerous and have to be brought to the speediest end, before one or the other of us is swept away on the mistaken and precarious path of emotional fantasies. Dimitri had been struck dumb. He did not know what to admire most; the naive honesty, the cold cynicism or the learned reference to Ovid. Before him there opened a new and unsuspected well of knowledge from which he was anxiously waiting to draw up wisdom. And yet Dimitri sensed by intuition rather than as a certainty something odd about the position that Sarah was expounding. What had this guilelessly epicurian approach to life to do with the girl he had seen that previous evening dressed like a Cypriot village girl hurrying off to Evensong. `Forgive me Sarah, but there is something that I do not understand. I see an inconsistency between the theory of life you have laid out for me and your actions, and even something inconsistent between the actions themselves. How do you combine such an unrestrained pursuit of pleasure with Christianity? Yesterday I saw you going to Evensong like a good Christian and it did not appear to be the fulfilment of a conventional social obligation.' `Ah Dimitri, you are touching on delicate and difficult matters. The sun has found us out here and it's beginning to get very hot. Come on, let's go and sit on the veranda and have something to drink. I have many things to say to you and not just about love. Do you know anything about the history of this house?' `No, since I am visiting it for the firnt time' answered Dimitri, without protesting at this artful change of subject. `So you don't know that two years ago there was a murder here?' `What murder? Whom did they kill?' `An Englishwoman. You wouldn't have known her. She worked in an office in Nicosia.' The two young people were still talking as they reached the house. Sarah went up onto the veranda and opened the large window-shutters which led into the drawingroom. She pointed to a spot inside next to the threshold. `They found her here, strangled', she said. `Who killed her?' `Her boss' `Was it a crime of passion?' `No, it had to do with weapons-smuggling'. Dimitri still had fresh in his memory that business of the St George - a Greek fishing boat whose crew were captured and tried, along with their Cypriot associates - and he asked himself whether this was an early attempt to bring in weapons for the freedom struggle. Realising however that Sarah's father was a colonel and commandant of an elite unit of the Royal Marines, he found himself unable to formulate a question about this kind of subject to his friend. Finally after a moment's hesitation he said: `So it was a political crime?' `Is that what you've been turning around in your mind all this time, you silly boy?' Dimitri blushed. The only thing that bothered him about his friendship with Sarah was that she took advantage of the three years that divided them in order to look down on him. `I am not a silly boy, he answered angrily. If your devotion to Her Majesty does not allow you to answer, then tell me so straight, and do not try to get out of it by changing the subject', he added sarcastically. `You are silly, because you haven't yet understood that I don't give twopence for the queen or for the crown colonies. The sooner we get up and leave here the better. Maybe you don't know that before he came to Cyprus my father was in Kenya, and so I had a chance to witness the State of Emergency at first hand. Murder and more murder and yet more murder. And with what result? We can't stay there anymore, and sooner or later we will have to go, leaving ruins behind us as in Ireland, as in India, as in Palestine. That's what we'll finish up with from here once we've put the Greeks and the Turks at each others' throats. And you think that I don't want to betray my loyalty to the queen..' While she spoke Sarah's cheeks glowed beneath her skin which was dotted with freckles. Her anger seemed to Dimitri to make her irresistibly attractive. He did not know what to wonder at or to admire most, the contempt for her queen - he would never have spoken like that about King Paul - or her readiness to rise above the ties of kinship and nationality. `How can you talk like that? Here they would arrest you for disloyalty. Aren't you English?' Sarah relaxed and said, with a smile which made two charming dimples in her cheeks, `They won't arrest me if you don't give me away. Isn't that so?' And she continued: `Since you are asking though whether I am English, I must tell you that I am not. My parents are both Irish, though from different backgrounds.' `Meaning?' `Meaning that my father is Anglo-Irish, an Irishman of English descent and a member of the Church of Ireland, as is bizarrely called the Anglican Church in Ireland, and my mother is a genuine Irish Catholic. As for me, I am a mixture, betwixt and between as they say. Personally I view the disputes of the Irish as pointless and of benefit only to the British Government, by perpetuating the division of the country and British rate in Northern Ireland. By the way, I should tell you that I find the disputes between Christian and Moslem in Cyprus equally pointless and harmful; and I believe that, if you want to be free of the British as soon as possible, you need to lay claim to your freedom as Cypriots. As for me, I think of Ireland as my home, and I feel equally at ease in Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant churches'. Peculiarly and by chance the discussion had come via a long digression back to its starting point: Sarah's credo. Dimitri now approached the discussion better prepared. He was at last in a position to work out why Sarah had looked to him so like a Cypriot village girl the day before. The figure in a head-scarf and a plain print frock was in truth half village girl, but from another island equally suffering from foreign occupation and civil hatred. Copyright by Hestia publications |
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