Zorba The Greek

17

THE NEXT DAY at dawn Zorba's voice woke me from sleep.

"What's got into you so early in the morning? Why all thís shouting?"

"We have to take things seriously, boss," he answered, filling his haversack with food. "I've brought two mules; get up and we'll go to the monastery and have the papers signed for the cable railway. There's only one thing makes a lion afraid and that's a louse. The lice will eat us all up, boss."

"Why call that poor Bouboulina a louse?" I asked him with a laugh.

But Zorba pretended he had not heard.

"Come on," he said, "before the sun is too high."

I was really very glad to go up into the mountains and enjoy the smell of the pine trees. We mounted our beasts and began the ascent, halting for a moment at the mine where Zorba gave some instructions to the workmen. He told them to work at the "Mother Superior," to dig out the trench in "The Piddler" and clean out the "Canavaro."

The day shone like a diamond of the first water. The higher we went, the more our spirits seemed to become purged and exalted. Once again I felt the influence on the soul of pure air, easy breathing and a vast horizon. Anyone would think the soul, too, was an animal with lungs and nostrils, and that it needed oxygen, was stifled in the dust or in the midst of too much stale breath.

The sun was already high when we entered the pine forest. The air there smelled of honey, the wind was blowing above us and soughed like the sea.

During the trek Zorba studied the slope of the mountainside. In his imagination he was driving in piles every so many yards, and when he raised his eyes he could already see the cable shining in the sun and running right down to the shore. Attached to the cable the felled tree trunks descended, whistling along like arrows from a bow.

He rubbed his hands together:

"Capital!" he said. "This'll be a gold mine! We'll soon be rolling in money, and we can do all we said."

I looked at him in astonishment.

"Hm! Don't tell me you've forgotten already! Before we built your monastery, we were going up the great mountain. What's its name?"

" Tibet, Zorba, Tibet. But only the two of us. You can't take women there."

"Who mentioned taking women? The poor creatures are very useful, anyway, so don't say anything against them; very useful, when a man hasn't got any man's'Work to do, such as cutting coal, taking towns by assault or talking to God. What else is there for him to do, then, if he isn't going to burst? He drinks wine, plays dice, or puts his arms round a woman… and he waits… waits for his hour to come-if it is coming."

He was silent for a moment.

"If it is coming," he repeated, in an irritated tone, "because it might never come at all."

And a moment later:

"It can't just go on like this, boss; either the world will have to get smaller or I shall have to get bigger. Otherwise I'm done for!"

A monk appeared between the pines, redhaired and yellow complexioned, his sleeves rolled up, a round homespun cap on his head. He was carrying an iron rod with which he struck the ground as he strode along. When he saw us he stopped and raised his stick in the air.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To the monastery," Zorba replied; "we're going to say our prayers."

"Turn back, Christians!" cried the monk, his clear blue eyes growing inflamed as he spoke. "Turn back, if you'll take my advice! It is not the Virgin's orchard you'll find there, but the garden of Satan! Poverty, humility, chastity… the monk's crown, as they say! Very likely. Go back, I tell you. Money, pride, and young boys! That's their Holy Trinity!"

"He's a comic, this chap," whispered Zorba, enchanted. He leaned towards him.

"What's your name, brother?" he asked the monk. "And where do you come from?"

"My name is Zaharia. I've packed up my things and I'm off! Right away. I can't bear it any longer! Kindly tell me your name, countryman."

"Canavaro."

"I can't endure it any longer, brother Canavaro. All night long Christ moans and prevents me sleeping. And I moan with him. Then the abbot-may he roast in hell-fire forever-sent for me early this morning."

"'Well, Zaharia,' he said. 'So, you won't let your brother monks sleep. I'm going to throw you out.'

"'I won't let them sleep?' I said. 'I won't? Or Christ won't? He's the one who keeps moaning.'

"Then he raised his cross, that anti-Christ, and, well… look!"

He took off his monk's cap and revealed a patch of congealed blood in his hair.

"So I shook the dust of the place from my shoes and left."

"Come back to the monastery with us," said Zorba. "I'll get round the abbot. Come on, you can keep us company and show us the way. You've been sent by heaven itself."

The monk thought for a moment. His eyes shone.

"What will you give me?" he asked.

"What do you want?"

"Two pounds of salt cod and a bottle of brandy."

Zorba leaned forward and looked at him.

"You wouldn't by any chance have a sort of devil inside you, would you, Zaharia?"

The monk started.

"How did you guess?" he asked in amazement.

"I come from Mount Athos myself," answered Zorba. "I know something about it."

The monk hung his head. We could scarcely hear his reply.

"Yes, I have a devil inside me."

"And he'd like some salt cod and brandy, would he?"

"Yes, thrice damned as he is!"

"All right! Done! Does he smoke as well?"

Zorba threw him a cigarette and the monk seized it eagerly.

"He smokes, yes, he smokes, plague on him!" he said.

And he took a small flint and a piece of wick from his pocket, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply.

"In Christ's name!" he said.

He raised his iron rod, turned about face and started off.

"What's your devil's name?" asked Zorba, winking at me.

"Joseph!" answered Zaharia, without turning his head.

This half-crazed monk's company was not at all to my taste. A sick mind, like a sick body, makes me feel compassion, and at the same time disgust. But I said nothing; I left it to Zorba to do what he liked.

The clear pure air made us hungry and we sat down beneath a giant pine tree and opened the haversack. The monk leaned forward and hungrily peered into it to see what it contained.

"Not so fast!" cried Zorba. "Don't lick your chops too soon, Zaharia! It's Holy Monday today. We are freemasons, so we shall eat some meat and chicken, God forgive us! But look, there's some halva and a few olives for your own saintly stomach!"

The monk stroked his filthy beard.

"I will have olives and bread and fresh water," he said with contrition. "But Joseph's a devil, he will eat meat with you, brothers; he likes chicken-oh, he's a lost soul-and he'll drink wine from your gourd!"

He made the sign of the cross, swallowed the bread, olives and halva, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, drank the water, and then crossed himself again as if he had finished his meal.

"Now," he said, "it's Joseph's turn, the poor thrice-damned soul."

And he threw himself on the chicken.

"Eat, you lost soul!" he mumbled furiously as he rammed great lumps of chicken into his mouth. "Eat!"

"Hoorah! Good for you, monk!" shouted Zorba enthusiastically. "You've got two strings to your bow, I can see."

He turned to me.

"What do you think of him, boss?"

"He's very like you," I said with a laugh.

Zorba gave the monk the wine gourd.

"Joseph! Have a drink!"

"Drink! You lost soul!" said the monk, seizing the bottle and clapping it to his mouth.

The sun was very hot and we moved further into the shade. The monk reeked of sour sweat and incense. He almost ran liquid in the sun and Zorba dragged him to the shadiest spot to reduce the stench.

"How did you become a monk?" asked Zorba, who had eaten well and wanted to gossip.

The monk grinned.

"I suppose you think it was because I'm so saintly? You bet! It was through poverty, brother, poverty! I had nothing left to eat, so I said to myself: if I go into a monastery, I can't starve!"

"And are you satisfied?"

"God be praised! I sigh and complain often enough but don't you pay any attention to that. I don't sigh for earthly things; as far as I'm concerned they can go and be… forgive me… and I tell them every day to go and be… But I long for heaven! I tell jokes and cut capers about the place and make the monks laugh. They all say I'm possessed by the devil and insult me. But I say to myself: 'It can't be true; God must like fun and laughter. "Come inside, my little buffoon, come inside," he'll say to me one day, I know. "Come and make me laugh!"' That's the way I'll get into Paradise, as a buffoon!"

"You've got your head screwed on the right way, old fellow!" said Zorba, standing up. "Come on, we must make a move, so that we don't get caught by the dark."

The monk went ahead again. As we climbed the mountain I felt we were clambering over ranges of the mind within me, passing from base and petty cares to nobler ones, from the comfortable truths of the plains to precipitous conceptions.

Suddenly the monk stopped.

"Our Lady of Revenge!" he cried, pointing to a small chapel with a graceful dome. He sank to his knees and made the sign of the cross. I dismounted and entered the cool oratory. In one corner was an old icon, black with smoke and covered with votive offerings: thin sheets of silver on which had been crudely engraved figures of feet, hands, eyes, hearts… A silver candlestick stood before the icon holding an ever-burning light.

I approached in silence: a fierce, warlike madonna with a strong neck and the austere, uneasy look of a virgin, held in her hand, not the holy babe, but a long straight spear.

"Woe to him who attacks the monastery!" said the monk in terror. "She hurls herself at him and sticks him through with her spear. In ancient times the Algerians came here and burnt the monastery. But see what it cost these heathens: as they passed this chapel the Holy Virgin, all of a sudden, threw herself from the icon, rushed outside and started thrusting with her spear, thís way and that, in all directions… And she killed them all to a man. My grandfather remembered seeing their bones; they littered the whole of the forest. Since then, we call her Our Lady of Revenge. Before that she was called Our Lady of Mercy."

"Why didn't she perform her miracle before they burnt the monastery, Father Zaharia?" asked Zorba.

"That was the will of the All-High!" answered the monk, crossing himself three times.

"Good for the All-High!" muttered Zorba, climbing back into the saddle. "On we gö!"

Soon a plateau appeared on which we could see the outline of the Holy Virgin's monastery surrounded by rocks and pine trees. Serene, smiling, cut off from the rest of the world in the hollow of this high green gorge, uniting in deep harmony the nobility of the peak and the gentleness of the plain, this monastery appeared to me a marvellously chosen retreat for human meditation.

"Here," I thought, "a gentle, sober spirit could cultivate a religious exaltation that would match the stature of men. Neither a precipitous, superhuman peak, nor a lazy, voluptuous plain, but what is needed, and no more, for the soul to be elevated without losing its human tenderness. A site like this will fashion neither heroes nor swine. It will fashion men."

Here a graceful ancient Greek temple or a gay Mohammedan mosque would be in keeping. God must come down here in simple human form, walk barefoot across the spring grass, and converse quietly with men.

"What a marvel! What solitude! What felicity!" I murmured.

We dismounted, went through the central door, climbed to the visiting room, where we were offered the traditional tray of raki, jam and coffee. The guest master, or hospitaller, came to see us, and in a moment we were surrounded by monks who began to talk. Cunning eyes, insatiable lips, beards, moustaches, and the odor of so many he-goats.

"Haven't you brought a newspaper?" one monk asked anxiously.

"A newspaper?" I said in astonishment. "What would you do with a newspaper here?"

"A newspaper, brother, would tell us what is happening in the world below!" cried two or three indignant voices.

Leaning on the rails of the balcony, they croaked like a lot of ravens. They were talking excitedly of England, Russia, Venizelos, the king. The world had banished them, but they had not banished the world. Their eyes were full of the great cities, shops, women, newspapers…

A big, fat hairy monk stood up and sniffed.

"I have something to show you," he said to me. "You can tell me what you think of it. I'll go and fetch it."

He went off, his short hairy hands clasped together over his stomach, his cloth slippers dragging along the floor. He disappeared through the door.

The monks all grinned nastily.

"Father Demetrios is going to fetch his clay nun again," said the hospitaller. "The devil buried it in the ground especially for him and one day Demetrios found it when he was digging in the garden. He took it to his cell and has lost his sleep ever since. He's nearly lost his senses, too."

Zorba stood up. He was suffocating.

"We came to see the Abbot and to sign some papers," he said.

"The holy abbot isn't here," said the hospitaller. "He went to the village this morning. Have patience."

Father Demetrios reappeared, his two clasped hands outstretched as though he were carrying the holy chalice.

"There!" he said, opening his hands cautiously.

I went up to him. A tiny Tanagra figurine, half-naked and coy, smiled up at me from the monk's fat fingers. She was holding her head with the one hand that still remained to her.

"For her to show her head like that," said Demetrios, "means that she has a precious stone inside it, maybe a diamond or a pearl. What do you think?"

"I think," came one monk's acid comment, "that she's got a headache."

But big Demetrios, his lips hanging down like a goat's, watched me and waited impatiently.

"I think I ought to break her and see," he said. "I can't get any sleep at night for it… If there were a diamond inside…"

I looked at the graceful young girl wíth her tiny, firm breasts, exiled here in the smell of incense and among crucified gods that lay their curse on the flesh, on laughter and kisses.

Ah! if only I could save her!

Zorba took the terra-cotta figurine, felt the thin womanly body, and his fingers stayed, trembling on the firm, pointed breasts.

"But can't you see, my good monk," he said, "that this is the devil? It's the devil himself, and no mistake. Don't you worry, I know him well enough, accursed as he is. Look at her breasts here, Father Demetrios-cool, round and firm. That's just what the devil's breast is like, and I know plenty about that!"

A young monk appeared in the doorway. The sun shone on his golden hair and round, downy face.

The venomous-tongued monk who had spoken before winked to the hospitaller. They both smiled cunningly.

"Father Demetrios," they said. "Here is your novice, Gavrili."

The monk seized his tiny clay woman immediately and went rolling like a barrel towards the door. The handsome novice walked silently in front of him with a swinging step. They disappeared down the long, dilapidated corridor.

I signed to Zorba and we went out into the courtyard. It was agreeably hot outside. In the middle of the courtyard an orange tree ín blossom scented the air. Close by, water ran murmuring from an ancíent ram's head in marble. I put my head underneath and felt refreshed.

"What in God's name are these people?" Zorba asked with some dísgust. "They're neither men nor women; they're mules. Pooh! let them go hang!"

He too plunged his head beneath the fresh water and began to laugh.

"Pooh! let them go hang!" he said again. "They've all got a devil of some sort in them. One wants a woman, another salt cod, another money, another newspapers… bunch of noodles! Why don't they come down into the world, stuff themselves full of all that and purge their brains?"

He lit a cigarette and sat on the bench beneath the blossoming orange tree.

"When I have a longing for something myself," he said, "do you know what I do? I cram myself chockful of it, and so I get rid of it and don't think about it any longer. Or, if I do, it makes me retch. Once when I was a kid-this'll show you-I was mad on cherries. I had no money, so I couldn't buy many at a time, and when I'd eaten all I could buy I still wanted more. Day and night I thought of nothing but cherries. I foamed at the mouth; it was torture! But one day I got mad, or ashamed, I don't know which. Anyway, I just felt cherries were doing what they liked with me and it was ludicrous. So what did I do? I got up one night, searched my father's pockets and found a silver mejidie and pinched it. I was up early the next morning, went to a market gardener and bought a basket o' cherries. I settled down in a ditch and began eating. I stuffed and stuffed till I was all swollen out. My stomach began to ache and I was sick. Yes, boss, I was thoroughly sick, and from that day to this I've never wanted a cherry. I couldn't bear the sight of them. I was saved. I could say to any cherry: I don't need you any more. And I did the same thing later with wine and tobacco. I still drink and smoke, but at any second, if I want to, whoop! I can cut it out. I'm not ruled by passion. It's the same with my country. I thought too much about it, so I stuffed myself up to the neck with it, spewed it up, and it's never troubled me since."

"What about women?" I asked.

"Their turn will come, damn them! It'll come! When I'm about seventy!"

He thought for a moment, and it seemed too imminent.

"Eighty," he said, correcting himself. "That makes you laugh, boss, I can see, but you needn't. That's how men free themselves! Listen to me; there's no other way except by stuffing themselves till they burst. Not by turning ascetic. How do you expect to get the better of a devil, boss, if you don't turn into a devil-and-a-half yourself?"

Demetrios came panting into the courtyard, followed by the fair young monk.

"Anybody'd think he was an angel in a temper," muttered Zorba, admiring his shyness and youthful grace.

They went towards the stone staircase leading to the upper cells. Demetrios turned round, looked at the young monk, and said a few words. The monk shook his head as in refusal. But immediately afterwards he nodded in submission, put his arm round the old monk and they mounted the steps together.

"Get it?" asked Zorba. "D'you see? Sodom and Gomorrah!"

Two monks peeped out, winked at one another and began to laugh.

"Spiteful bunch!" grunted Zorba. "Wolves don't tear one another to pieces, but look at these monks! Have you ever seen women go for one another like this?"

"They're all men," I said, laughing.

"There's not much difference here, boss, you take it from me! Mules, all of them. You can call them Gavrilis, or Gavrila, Demetrios, or Demetria, according to how you feel. Come on, boss, let's be off. Get the papers signed as quick as we can and let's go. We'll soon get disgusted with men and women altogether if we stay here."

He lowered his voice.

"Besides, I've got a scheme…"

"Another mad idea, I know. Don't you think you've done enough foolish things in your time, you old goat? Tell me what your scheme is."

Zorba shrugged his shoulders.

"How can I tell you a thing like that, boss? You're a nice chap, if you'll allow me to say so! You do your utmost for everybody, whoever they are. If you found a flea on your eiderdown in the winter you'd put it underneath so that it wouldn't catch cold. How should you understand an old scoundrel like me? If I find a flea, crack! I crush him. If I find a sheep, swish! I cut its throat, slap it onto the spit and invite my friends to a feast! But you'd say: the sheep isn't yours! No, I admit that. But, boss, let's finish eating it first, afterwards we'll talk it over quietly and discuss what's 'yours' and 'mine' as much as you like. You could talk to your heart's content about it, while I cleaned my teeth with a matchstick."

The courtyard resounded with his peals of laughter. Zaharia appeared, terrified. He placed a finger on his lips and crept up to us on tiptoe.

"Sh!" he said. "You mustn't laugh! Look up there, that little window… that's where the bishop is working; it's the líbrary. He's writing, the holy man is. He writes all day long, so don't make a noise."

"Ha, you're just the person I wanted to see, Father Joseph!" said Zorba, taking the monk's arm. "Come, take me to your cell, I want a chat with you." Then he turned to me:

"While we're away, you go and have a look round the chapel and all the old icons," he said. "I'll wait for the abbot, he won't be long. But don't start anything yourself, you'll only make a mess of it. Leave it to me, I've got a scheme." He bent down and spoke in my ear.

"We'll have that forest at half price… Don't say a word." And he went off quickly, holding the mad monk's arm.