Corelli's Mandolin Page 9

  We found that there is also a wild excitement when the tension of waiting is done with, and that sometimes this transforms itself into a kind of demented sadism once an action is commenced. You cannot always blame soldiers for their atrocities, because I can tell you from experience that they are the natural consequence of the inferno of relief that comes from not having to think any more. Atrocities are sometimes nothing less than the vengeance of the tormented. Catharsis is the word I was looking for. A Greek word.

  Lying in the scrub in front of that nocturnal tower I felt Francisco at my side and knew that Phaedrus was right in believing that a lover is more valourous with his beloved at his side. I wanted to protect Francisco and prove to him that I was a man. I found that my love for him was increased by the thought that soon we might lose each other to a bullet.

  It was just before midnight, the owls were shrieking, and in the distance I heard the mellow chiming of goatbells. It was intensely cold, and a freezing wind had sprung up from the north. We called that wind by a lot of names, but ‘ball-shrinker’ was probably the most apt.

  At midnight Francisco looked at his watch and said, ‘I can’t stand much more of this. My fingers are dropping off, my feet are like ice, and I swear it’s going to rain. For Christ’s sake let’s get this over with.’

  ‘We can’t,’ I said. ‘The order is not to attack until two o’clock.’

  ‘Come on, Carlo, what does it matter? Let’s do it now and go home. Mario’s pissed off and so am I.’

  ‘For you, home is Genoa. You can’t go there. Look, it’s a question of discipline.’

  1 lost the argument because in truth I agreed with Francisco and I didn’t want to die of exposure in that godforsaken spot just because we had arrived early on account of efficiency and enthusiasm.

  The order had been to use the machine-gun on the brigands, but out there in the night in that lethal temperature it no longer seemed a very good idea. It was so cold to the touch that it hurt the fingers, and besides, we were not sure that we could operate it in the dark. We decided to scout nearer the watchtower.

  They had a lamp up there, and we were astonished to see that there were at least ten men. We had expected three at the most. We also saw that there were four machine-guns perched on the outer railings. Francisco whispered, ‘Why did they only send the two of us? If we fire on them, we’re dead. I tell you, it’s fishy business. Since when did brigands have machine-guns?’

  There was the sound of singing from the tower, and it seemed that they must have been a little drunk. It gave me the confidence to crawl forward and do a close reconnaissance, trying to ignore the pine cones that scratched my hands and the little sharp rocks that seemed to cut through to my bones. I discovered that there was a large heap of kindling and a drum of kerosene under the tower, where it would be protected from the rain. All the watchtowers had wood-burning stoves and oil-lamps, and naturally the supplies were always kept underneath them.

  That is why Francisco and I not only began the attack two hours early, but did it by overturning the drum and setting fire to it. The tower went up like a torch, and we filled it with machine-gun bullets from almost directly underneath. We fired and fired until we had used a complete belt. If there were screams we could not hear them. We were only aware of that leaping gun, the clenching of our own teeth, and the horrible madness of desperate action.

  When the belt ran out there was a horrifying silence. We looked at each other and smiled. Francisco’s smile was weak and sorrowful, and I should think that mine was the same. It was our first atrocity. We felt no triumph. We felt exhausted and tainted.

  It was Francisco who fell over the body of Captain Roatta of the Bersaglieri, who had tumbled over the railings of the tower and broken his neck. The body lay spreadeagled and twisted, as though it had never contained a life. It was Francisco who found the orders that had instructed the captain to take nine men to the tower in anticipation of an attack by the Greek Army, which Intelligence expected at 0200 hours.

  Francisco sat next to me beside that body and looked up the stars. ‘These aren’t British uniforms at all,’ he said at last. ‘The Greeks wear the same uniform as the British, don’t they?’

  I too looked at the stars. ‘We were supposed to be killed. ‘That’s why we were told to go without identification discs. We are Greeks attacking the Italian Army, and we’re supposed to be dead. That’s why they only sent two of us, to make sure that we couldn’t win.’

  Francisco stood up slowly. He raised his hands in a small gesture of anguish, and then let them drop to his side. He said bitterly, ‘It looks as though some stupid bastard wants to provoke a little war with Greece.’

  11 Pelagia and Mandras

  PELAGIA (sitting in the privy after breakfast): It’s so nice that whoever built this place left a gap at the top of the door. I could just sit here for hours watching the clouds unfolding about the summit of the mountain. I wonder where they come from? I mean, I know that it’s water vapour, but they just seem to gather together out of nothing, quite suddenly. It’s as if every drop has a secret to share with its brothers, and so they rise up out of the sea and huddle together and drift along in the breeze, and the clouds change shapes as the drops hurry from one confidante to another, whispering. They are saying, ‘I can see Pelagia down there, sitting on the privy, and she doesn’t even know that we’re talking about her.’ They are saying, ‘I saw Pelagia and Mandras kissing. What will come of it? She would blush if she knew.’ O, I am blushing. I am stupid. And why do the clouds travel more slowly than the wind that drives them? And why, sometimes, does the wind blow one way and the clouds travel in another? Is Papakis right when he says that there are several different layers of wind, or is it that the clouds have some means of travelling against it? I must cut up some more clouts, I have those pains in my stomach and my back, and it’s about time. I saw the new moon last night, and that means I’m due. Auntie says that the only good thing about being pregnant is that you don’t have to worry about bleeding. Poor little Chrysoula, poor little girl, what a terrible thing to happen. Papas coming home late at night, shaking with rage and distress, all because Chrysoula got to the age of fourteen and no one had ever told her that one day she would bleed, and she is so horrified, she thinks that she has some loathsome secret disease, and she can’t tell anyone, and she takes rat-poison. And Papas is so angry that he takes Chrysoula’s mother by the neck and shakes her like a dog shakes a rabbit, and Chrysoula’s father just goes out with the boys as usual and comes home drunk as if nothing has happened, and underneath Chrysoula’s bed is a pile of paper as thick as a bible, full of her prayers to St Gerasimos for a cure, and the prayers are so sad and desperate that they make you weep. Well, I can’t sit here all day, thinking about clouds and menstruation, and anyway it’s beginning to get a bit hot, and there’ll be a stench setting in. I’ll stay here a little longer though, because Papas won’t be coming back from breakfast for another ten minutes, and the important thing is to look busy when he turns up. I suppose they had to leave a gap in the top of the door, or else it would be completely dark in here.

  MANDRAS (loading his nets onto the boat): St Peter and St Andrew grant me a good catch. It’s going to be another scorching day, I just know it, I just know all the fish will hide in the rocks and go to the bottom. God should have made them with sunglasses for the sake of us poor fishermen. Let the clouds on Mt Aenos shift across the sun, Lord, let me catch a fine mullet for Doctor Iannis and Pelagia, let me see some dolphins or some porpoises so that I know where the fish are, let me see some gulls so that I can find some whitebait, and Pelagia can cover them in flour and fry them in oil and squeeze lemon juice all over them and she’ll ask me to eat with them, and I can touch Pelagia’s leg with my foot under the table whilst the doctor goes on about Euripides and the Napoleonic occupation, and I’ll say, ‘How interesting, I never knew that, is that so?’ Let me catch a bream for my mother, and a seabass, and a fine big octopus to cut up into rings so t
hat mother can cook them and I’ll eat them tomorrow, cold, covered with thyme and oil, on a thick white piece of bread. I shouldn’t go out on a Tuesday, there’s never any luck on a Tuesday, but a man has to live, and maybe there’ll be a smile for me amongst the numberless smiles of the waves. That’s something I learned from the doctor; ‘The innumerable smiles of the waves,’ a line by Aeschylus, who obviously never went to sea in winter. Innumerable drenchings and infinite cold, more like. But it’s a pretty day today, as pretty as Pelagia, and if I drop a line onto the bottom, I’ll probably get a flatfish, and if I get salt water into these cuts in my backside, it’s going to sting like fuck.

  PELAGIA (drawing water from the well): Papakis says that Mandras is going to have specks of terracotta in his backside for the rest of his life, and it’s going to look as though someone’s sprinkled it with red pepper. I like his backside, God forgive me, even though I’ve never seen it. I can just tell that I like it. That I would like it. It’s very small. When he bends down I can see that it’s like two halves of a melon. I mean, the curves seem to be in a proportion according to God’s original design for fruit. When he kisses me I want to reach round him and take a buttock in each hand. I never have. I wouldn’t. What would he say if I did? I have such sluttish thoughts. Thank God no one reads my mind, I’d be locked up and all the old women would throw stones at me and call me a whore. When I think of Mandras I get a picture of his face, grinning, and then I get a picture of him bending over. Sometimes I wonder if I’m normal, but the things the women say when we’re all together and the men are in the kapheneia. If the men only knew, what a shock! Every woman in the village knows that Kokolios’ penis is curved sideways like a banana and that the priest has a rash on his scrotum, and the men don’t know. They don’t have a clue what we talk about, they think we talk about cooking and babies and sewing up rents in our clothes. And when we find a potato that looks like a set of men’s equipment we pass it round and laugh about it. I wish there was some way of bringing water to the house without having to carry it. Every jar is heavier than the last, and I always get wet. They say that the Normans used to poison the wells by throwing down corpses, and you had no choice except to die of thirst or die of foul water. It’s a miracle, an island without streams or rivers, blessed with clean water from the ground even in August. I’m going to rest a while when I get home; I hate the sticky prickling feeling in the back of my neck when I start to sweat. What I want to know is, why did God make it too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter? And where is it written down that women have to carry water when men are stronger? When Mandras asks me to marry him, I am going to say, ‘Not unless you agree to fetch the water.’ He’ll say, ‘Fine, if you do the fishing,’ and I won’t know what to say. What we need is an inventor to come and put in a pump to take the water to the house. I could kill Papas. What does he mean, telling Mandras that I won’t have a dowry? Who marries without one? Papas says that it’s a barbarism, and they don’t do it in any civilised country he knows of, and you should marry for love as he did, and that it’s an obscenity to make it a transaction, and that it implies that a woman is not worth marrying unless she carries property on her back. Well, then, I’ll be forced to marry a foreigner if he thinks like that. I said to him, ‘Papakis, if you think about it, it’s foolish to wear clothes in hot weather. Do you want me to be the only woman in Greece who wears no clothes in the summer?’ and he kisses me on the forehead and says, ‘You’re almost clever enough to be my daughter,’ and goes out. I’ve a good mind to be naked when he comes home, I really have. You can’t go against the custom, you just can’t, even if the custom’s stupid, and what will Mandras’ family say? How am I supposed to bear the shame? All I have is a goat. Am I supposed to go off to his father’s house with nothing but a goat and a pack of clothes? And who says they’ll want my goat? Well, I’m not going if I can’t take the goat, and that’s that. Who else is going to breathe up his nose and scratch behind his ears? Papakis won’t. And I wish Papas would stop peeing on the herbs, it makes me wince when I have to use them. Maybe I ought to grow some somewhere else, secretly, and only use those. I can’t go on asking the neighbours when they can see perfectly well that we have plenty of our own, and I really can’t tell them that I can’t use ours because they’re covered with urine. O God. O God. I might have known. O shit. Why didn’t I put a clout in before I lifted the jar? I’m so stupid, and now there’s blood coming out. Ugh, it’s all hot and sticky. I think I’d better come back for the jar later. Here we go again, five days of waddling like a duck.

  MANDRAS (leaving the mouth of the harbour):

  (sings) Come you dolphins, come my way,

  And lead me to the fish today,

  And if I catch some mighty fish

  I’ll let you have one if you wish.

  And if I catch a raft of weeds

  I’ll give my girl a string of beads,

  And if I catch a drowning mouse

  I’ll make you eat my granny’s house,

  But if I catch a creel of plaice

  I’ll dress you all in pearls and lace.

  No dowry. God knows, I love her, but what will everyone say? They’ll say that Doctor Iannis doesn’t think I’m good enough, that’s what. And he’s always calling me a fool and an idiot, and saying I’ve got too much kefi to be a good husband. Well, I am a fool. A man is always a fool when it comes to women, everyone knows that. And I know the doctor likes me, he keeps asking me when I am going to ask his permission to marry Pelagia, and he turns a blind eye when I come and talk to her. The trouble is that I can’t be myself when I’m with her. I mean, I am a serious man. I think about things. I follow politics, and I know the difference between a Royalist and a Venizelist. I’m serious because I’m not just out for myself; I want to improve the world, I want to play my part in things. But when I’m with Pelagia it’s as though I’m twelve again; one minute I’m up the olive tree being Tarzan, and the next minute I’m pretending to have a fight with the goat. It’s showing off, that’s what it is, but what else am I supposed to do? I can’t see myself saying, ‘Come on Pelagia, let’s talk about politics.’ Women aren’t interested in that sort of thing, they want you to entertain them. I’ve never talked to her about my vision of things. Perhaps she thinks I’m a fool as well. I’m not in her class, I know that. The doctor taught her Italian and a bit of English, and their house is bigger than ours, but I’m not inferior. At least, I don’t think I’m inferior. They’re not a typical family, that’s all. Unconventional. The doctor says what he likes. I don’t really know where I stand a lot of the time. It would have been easier to fall in love with Despina or Polyxeni. Perhaps if I’d had my period of exiteia I would be more worldly-wise. I mean, the doctor’s sailed all over the world, he’s even been to America. And where have I been? What do I know? I’ve been to Ithaca and Zante and Levkas. Big deal. I don’t have any stories and souvenirs. I’ve never tried French wine. He says that in Ireland it rains every day and that in Chile there’s a desert where it has never rained at all. I love Pelagia, but I know that I will never be a man until I’ve done something important, something great, something I can live with, something to be esteemed. That’s why I hope there’s going to be a war. I don’t want bloodshed and glory, I want something to get to grips with. No man is a man until he has been a soldier. I can come back in my uniform and no one will say, ‘Mandras is a likeable lad, but there’s nothing to him.’ I’ll be worth a dowry then. Ah, dolphins. A bit of rudder, throw the jib over. No, no, don’t come to me, I’m coming to you. I hope you weren’t just playing. Ah, I do believe it’s dolphin Kosmas, dolphin Nionios, and dolphiness Krystal. Kalimera, my smiling friends. Out of the way, I’m reeling out the net, and don’t take too many fish from the mesh this time. Fuck it, I’m too hot, I’m coming in the water. Clothes off, drop the anchor. Watch out you dolphins, I’m coming in. Jesus it’s lovely. Is there anything as good as seawater on the bridge of an overheated groin? Anything as good as scudding away w
ith one hand on the fin of a dolphin? Swim, Krystal, swim. Shit, that stings.

  PELAGIA (at siesta): It’s too hot. The door’s moving. Who’s that? Mandras? No, don’t be stupid, you can’t make someone come just by thinking of them. They say that there is such a thing as a ghost of the living. O, it’s you, Psipsina. O no, o no. Why can’t we have a dog like everyone else? Even a cat? We’ve got to have a mad pine marten that doesn’t take siestas. Get off. How much bigger do you think you can grow? I can’t sleep with half a ton on my chest. Stay still. Mmm, why do you always smell so sweet, Psipsina? Been stealing eggs and berries again? Why can’t you catch your own mice? I’m sick of grinding up mice. Why can’t you use the floor like everyone else? What’s the pleasure in flying about the room without touching the floor? Mmm, how sweet you are, I’m glad Lemoni found you. Really, I am. I wish you were Mandras. I want Mandras lying on my chest. God, it’s hot. How can you stand that fur coat, Psipsina? I wish you were Mandras. I wonder what he’s doing? Out in the breeze at sea, I suppose. I wonder how his backside is. Papakis said it was a very splendid backside. Full of terracotta. ‘The arse of a classical statue, a very fine arse,’ he said. If I close my eyes and hold out my arms, and pray to St Gerasimos, perhaps when I open them it’ll be Mandras on my chest instead of Psipsina. No luck. No luck, Psipsina. He’s so beautiful. And he’s so funny. He made my stomach ache with laughing before he fell out of the tree. That’s when I knew that I loved him, it was the fear I felt when he fell on the pot. I’ll hug Psipsina as if it was him, and perhaps he’ll feel it. I hope you haven’t got fleas. I don’t want red spots up my arms. My ankle was itching yesterday and I was thinking of blaming you, Psipsina, but I think I must have brushed a thorn with it. When will he ask me to marry him? He says that his mother is not very nice. What a thing to say about one’s own mother. I wish I could remember Mitera. Poor Mitera. Died like a skeleton coughing up blood. She looks nice in the photograph, so young and contented, and the way she has her hand on his shoulder, you can tell that she loved him. If she was still alive I would know what to do about Mandras, she’d change Papakis’ mind about the dowry. Mandras doesn’t seem to mind. He’s not a serious fellow, and it gives me doubts. He’s so funny, but I can’t talk to him about anything. You have to be able to discuss things with a husband, don’t you? Everything’s a joke with him. He is witty, and that shows that he’s not stupid, I hope. I say, ‘Is there going to be a war?’ and he just grins and says, ‘Who cares? Is there going to be a kiss?’ I don’t want there to be a war. Let there not be war. Let there be Mandras standing at the entrance of the yard with a fish in his hands. Let there be Mandras every day with a fish. I’m a bit sick of fish, to tell the truth. Have you noticed, Psipsina? Every time he brings a fish, a bit more of it ends up in your bowl?