Sons of Sparta

Chapter Six

Kouros watched as his mother lifted the small, twisted shortbread biscuits out of their box and carefully arranged them on a plate. She always served koulourakia that way, even when alone. Any suggestion that it would be simpler to put the box on the table drew an immediate lecture on manners. She followed the same sort of ordered procedure in preparing her morning coffee: always strong, sweet, and Greek. If you dared call it Turkish, or worse still, said, “Instant is fine,” you risked losing your welcome guest status in keria Kouros’ home. Tradition meant more to his mother than prayer, and when she moved from the Mani to Athens as a young bride, she carried with her the teachings of her mother much the same as a priest would the lessons of his Bible.

“We are Nyklian,” she regularly reminded her son. “Direct descendants of Spartan heroes from the colony of Nikli at Tripoli who came to the Mani more than eight centuries ago, bringing with them order to its wild ways. We are Mani royalty.”

In school, Kouros learned that Nyklians also brought with them a feudal, warrior mentality that drove them into ferocious feuds with neighboring Nyklian clans over control of the little available land, and to treat those they considered beneath their class as no better than donkeys. The Mani was a place of chronic anarchy, where the powerful ruled by reason of their force, and a woman’s role was to bear male children, called “guns,” to carry on the fight. But it was not a closed class structure, for a gifted fighter from the lower class could rise to be Nyklian and a Nyklian boy could properly marry a girl from the lower class. But for a Nyklian girl to marry beneath her class brought immediate disgrace to her family. They were ways reminiscent of the Dark Ages, but in the Mani they persisted well into the nineteenth century, and in some cases, beyond.

Kouros often wondered whether hooking up with a boy beneath her Nyklian class was the sin his slain Great-aunt Calliope had committed in her father’s eyes.

His mother placed a cup of coffee on the kitchen table in front of him and another by the chair next to his. She sat down, picked up her coffee, and took a tentative sip. She put down the cup. She’d not said a word all morning, but gone about her routine as if in her own kitchen rather than alone with her son in the house of her now-deceased brother-in-law.

Last night they’d gone directly to the church to join their family sitting with Uncle’s body. Despite the late hour, the family sat surrounded by well-wishers, mourners, wailers, shriekers, and even a few tourists drawn in by all the commotion. Mangas did not say a word to Kouros about the circumstances of his father’s death. He’d acted as if it were a forbidden topic. Kouros hoped that meant his cousin’s anger had passed, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

Calliope had insisted they stay with her at Uncle’s home, and Kouros insisted she come back with them for at least a few hours of sleep before the funeral. She did but he doubted she’d slept. He’d heard her leaving the house at sunup to resume her vigil next to her father’s body.

His mother finished her coffee, stood up, and went up to her bedroom. Kouros took that as her way of letting him know it was time to get dressed for the funeral. The funeral wasn’t until eleven, but he knew she wanted to be at the church by nine.

He noticed she’d left her coffee cup and the empty plate on the kitchen table. That wasn’t like her, any more than being so quiet and withdrawn. He picked up the cups and plate, washed them and the coffeepot, and put the box of biscuits away. He hoped she was okay. This was a tough funeral for her. All of her husband’s brothers were now gone. She and Uncle’s sister were the only two left of their generation. The grave must seem much closer to her today, he thought. Then again, every day brings each of us closer to our own.

“Whoa,” said Kouros shaking his head and talking to himself. “This somber mood shit is contagious.”

“Yianni. It’s time to get dressed.”

“Yes, Mother.” He smiled. She’s back.

***

Kouros parked on the dirt just off the edge of a two-lane road winding up above the tiny hill town of Vathia. Twenty miles to the north the road led to Aeropoli, the city named after the Greek god of war, where Maniots struck the first blow in Greece’s War of Independence. Six miles to the south the road ended at the sea near the mythical entrance to Hades.

In the springtime Vathia sat perched on a blanket of wildflowers, laid out across terraced hillside fields dropping down to the sea a mile away. From where Kouros stood it didn’t seem real, more like a medieval village of grand, earth-tone towers painted upon a movie backdrop of mountains, sea, and sky. To him, Vathia was the region’s most dramatic symbol of the historical essence of the Mani, for the beauty of the scene belied the fierce reputation of its villagers: Upon the walls of those same majestic eighteenth- and nineteenth-century towers once hung the heads of enemies proudly nailed there by those who took them.

Kouros and his mother walked down the road toward the turreted 1750 church of Saint Spyridon sitting with its back flush up against the road just a few paces uphill from the main entrance to the old village. Across the road he saw signs of renovations underway, but not many. Some of the towers and outbuildings in the village had been restored, but plans to do more in hopes of turning Vathia into a tourist draw fell through at the end of the last century. Vathia’s battles these days were waged by the half-dozen souls living there year-round, fighting to preserve what they could of its crumbling mystical towers. He wondered if his uncle’s plans for creating a resort might have reignited preservation efforts in this part of the Mani.

They reached the church a few minutes past nine. The church and its terra-cotta-tiled roof looked well maintained, in distinct counterpoint to much of the rest of the village. A relatively new flagstone patio abutting the church’s main entrance on its south side sat deserted, but by the time of Uncle’s service the place would be packed. In the Mani you might miss a wedding, but never a funeral. Certainly not one of this family.

They took the steep stone steps leading down from the road to the patio; the same route Uncle’s coffin had taken when brought into the church through its southern door. Kouros’ mother headed straight for a crowd of black-clad women surrounding the coffin, crying and consoling one another. Kouros looked for his cousins, but saw only Calliope and her sister. Her brothers weren’t here. He found a seat close by the front door, sat down, and waited. They would be here soon enough.

He hoped not carrying heads.

***

Andreas somehow made it into his office by ten. Before he could ask Maggie for coffee, she burst though his office door with a pot in one hand and a cup in the other.

“How did you know?”

“I could say female intuition.” She poured him a cup of coffee. “But a cop named Petro from headquarters security stopped by with a message for you. ‘Please tell the Chief they caught the guy who got away last night and he corroborated it was a drug-related shooting.’ He also told me to have the coffee ready for you.”

Andreas smiled. “Tell him thanks. Anything else happening?”

“Spiros’ office called twice. You’re to call him ‘the moment’ you arrive.”

“Oh, God, have mercy. There’s not enough coffee in the world to get me up for a call from him this morning.”

“Perhaps God considers it your penance for last night.” She put the pot down on top of a notepad on his desk. “Call me when you’ve had enough coffee to speak to Spiros.”

“As I said, there will never be enough. I may as well do it now.”

Maggie picked up the phone on Andreas’ desk and dialed. “Hi, dear, it’s me. Is your boss in? Mine would like to speak with him.” She handed Andreas the phone just as Spiros came on the line.

“Andreas, where have you been?”

“Morning, Spiros, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t know what you did last night but I got a call at home at dawn from Orestes telling me about your behavior last night.”

“The guy’s a bit of an asshole.”

“Maybe, but he thinks you’re terrific. Couldn’t stop praising you enough or thanking me for finding someone who would ‘save our country from ruin.’”

“Make that a ‘delusional asshole.’”

“Look, I don’t know how you did it, but you got him off my back, and for that I owe you.”

“All I said was that I would look into what’s happening on Crete to see if something illegal was going on.”

Spiros laughed. “On Crete? Something illegal? How could anyone ever think that?”

“It’s not smuggling or drug production he’s interested in. He just wants to protect his crowd’s piece of the gas find. I said I’d look into it. That’s all. And I can assure you I do not intend on going to war with the Cretans over anything I find. If our military thinks it’s too risky to fight them over drug production in their mountains, I’m not about to start one over gas production in their sea. I’m just going to look around and report. After that, Boss, it’s all up to you where you decide to take it.”

“Fine, fine, no problem. Just keep me informed. Got to run now. Bye.”

The phone went dead. Andreas stared at the receiver. Spiros hadn’t changed. As long as his immediate problem is somehow pushed down the road, he’s happy. It gave him more time to find someone to blame for whatever might go wrong.

“But not me this time, asshole.” Andreas hung up the phone.

***

By the time Uncle’s sons arrived at the church, Kouros’ other cousins were already there. The brothers went straight to the coffin. Grim-faced, dressed in black suits and white shirts, they lined its far side staring back toward the door. Mangas locked eyes on Kouros only long enough to nod. Kouros nodded back, tight-lipped, his hands crossed in front of him below his waist.

The priest came out from behind the iconostasis separating the main part of the church from the altar area, said a few quiet words to the family, and began the service. Age-old prayers and blessings chanted against a background chorus of crying, moaning, and wailing filled the room. Few others said a word except when called for by the service. This was a time for showing respect to the soul that once lay within the body in the coffin before them.

A half-hour passed, maybe more. Kouros had lost track of time. Memories of his uncle led him to thoughts of his father and how different the two brothers’ lives. His father lived as a soldier, guided by a moral code one would think utterly foreign to his brother. Shortly before his father died from lung cancer, Kouros asked him what he thought of his brother and the answer now ran through his mind: “I couldn’t live my life as my brother did his, and I wouldn’t want you to either, but it’s not for me to judge him. Yes, our father was a doctor, but it was our ancestors’ success as pirates that paid my father’s way. I was lucky and escaped our history. My brother could not.”

Before Kouros was born his father had shortened his family name, but never told his son why. Kouros guessed it had to do with his uncle’s infamous reputation during the years his father struggled to make a career in the military. His father’s gravestone bore both names, and at the funeral his uncle told Kouros, “Your father was a practical man. He did what he had to do to get ahead in this world, as did I. Be proud of the name he chose. I am.”

Kouros studied Mangas’ face for any sign of what he might be thinking. He saw only calm of the sort you’d expect to find in a flower-filled mountaintop meadow on a peaceful summer day. That’s not like my cousin, thought Kouros. He’s more the ready-to-explode-at-any-moment volcano type.

Mangas caught Kouros staring and before Kouros could look away he waved for him to come over. It took a second for Kouros to realize what his cousin wanted. The church service had ended and he’d just been chosen as a pallbearer.

***

The pallbearers huddled around the coffin, gripped it, and lifted together. It was not as heavy as Kouros thought it would be. Then again, there were six bulls sharing the load. They turned the coffin so that Uncle’s body left the church feet first, opposite to how it had entered. The priest led them out through a small, west-facing door and along a stone path toward the village’s main entrance, taking care not to retrace the steps the coffin had followed into the church. Behind the coffin walked the family, led by Calliope, followed by a far larger crowd of mourners than had squeezed into the small church for the service.

They slid the coffin into the rear of a black Mercedes hearse. Behind it stood two shiny black pickup trucks filled with flowers. The motorcade slowly pulled away in the direction of Cape Tenaro.

Mourners hurried to their vehicles to join the line driving up the hill to the south. At the crest of the hill the road began a gradual, winding, three-mile cliffside descent to the sea at the area of Marmari, where the Mani’s rugged coastline pinched in to form but a mile-wide waist and its mountains dropped to rises. Past Marmari the land spread out and rose up again for a final three-mile, leveling run down to the sea at mainland Europe’s southern terminus at Cape Tenaro.

A mile down the hill toward Marmari the hearse pulled off to the side of the road and stopped. The line of vehicles peeled off to park.

Kouros met up with the other pallbearers at the top of a scruffy, brush-covered switchback path. A quarter-mile away, on a rocky clifftop plateau, five shed-like stone structures topped in plain white crosses stood side by side facing west and overlooking the Ionian Sea.

Six men marching in cadence, trailed by a long line of black, carried the coffin across a shadowless, putty color landscape. They trudged in silence toward the largest of the structures, the tafos of Uncle’s family and final resting place for his earthly remains. Graves could not be dug in this area of the Mani’s rocky soil and his coffin would stay within this tomb for at least seven years, perhaps as long as ten, until only his bones remained. They would then be washed with water, followed by vinegar, allowed to dry in the sun, placed in a small wooden box, and put to rest for eternity in a drawer within the walls of this same tomb.

The pallbearers placed the coffin in front of the tafos. Wailing came in waves as they removed the lid, subsiding only long enough to hear the priestly blessing and prayer for Uncle’s soul. His blessed journey continued as the priest took Uncle’s arms crossed snuggly across his chest, drew them apart, and placed them to rest peacefully alongside his body, palms open and facing heaven. Only one tradition from this part of the Mani remained before Uncle’s coffin would be sealed and placed within the tomb. The priest picked up a full bottle of red wine and poured its contents over Uncle’s body.

Kouros’ mother stood among the crowd of women huddled close by the coffin, shrieking and crying as pallbearers sealed and lifted Uncle’s remains into the tomb. Such soulful, once-widespread traditions were rarely practiced in Greece these days, even in the Mani, but today all of them were observed, for Calliope had insisted it be so.

Kouros watched Calliope staring at the tomb. She seemed lost in thought. They hadn’t spoken today. Nor had she been active among the screaming mourners. But what surprised him most was when he’d heard she’d not participated in last night’s mirologia. Whatever her thoughts she seemed determined to keep them tightly locked inside. He hoped she was okay.

As if reading his thoughts Calliope looked up, let her eyes run wild across the crowd of mourners, raised her hands above her head, and screamed, “It is time.” All eyes turned to her and she began to chant.

It made no sense. This was not the proper time or place for mirologia. But no one dared stop her. She tearfully welcomed and thanked all who’d come to honor her father, taking special care to mention each dignitary by name. Her weeping grew into wailing, a sign to other women mourners to join her. They looked at each other, unsure of what to do. Kouros’ mother stepped forward and began chanting alongside Calliope. Others joined her, and soon one emotional outburst fed another as wailing women pulled at their hair, scratched their faces, and shouted blessings for the departed.

The brothers looked down at their feet, as if embarrassed by the scene at their father’s grave. But there was nothing they could do. This was their sister’s time.

Calliope drew one hand down from pulling at her hair and began pounding on her chest in keeping with the slow rhythmic beat of her mirologia to her father:

Kouros couldn’t believe he’d just heard Calliope stand at her father’s gravesite and in front of the entire community call out her brothers to seek vengeance for his death.

Looks like I’ve been worried about the wrong cousin starting a war.