Zorba The Greek

24

WE WENT in silence through the narrow streets of the village. There were no lights in the houses and they cast black shadows in the night. Somewhere a dog was barking, and a bullock sighed. From afar the wind carried to us the joyful tinkling of the lyre bells, dancing like the playful waters of a fountain.

"Zorba," I said, to break our heavy silence, "what is this wind, the Notus?"

But Zorba marched on in front, holding the parrot's cage like a lantern, and made no reply. When we came to the beach he turned round.

"Are you hungry, boss?" he asked

"No, I'm not hungry, Zorba."

"Are you sleepy?"

"No."

"Neither am I. Shall we sit down on the pebbles for a bit? I've got something to ask you."

We were both tired, but neither of us wanted to sleep. We were unwilling to lose the bitterness of those last few hours, and sleep seemed to us like running away in the hour of danger. We were ashamed of going to bed.

We sat down by the sea. Zorba put the cage between his knees and remained silent for a time. A disturbing constellation appeared in the sky from behind the mountain, a monster with countless eyes and a spiral tail. From time to time a star detached itself and fell away.

Zorba looked at the sky with open mouth in a sort of ecstasy, as though he were seeing it for the first time.

"What can be happening up there?" he murmured.

A moment later he decided to speak.

"Can you tell me, boss," he said, and his voice sounded deep and earnest in the warm night, "what all these things mean? Who made them all? And why? And, above all"-here Zorba's voice trembled with anger and fear-"why do people die?"

"I don't know, Zorba," I replied, ashamed, as if I had been asked the simplest thing, the most essential thing, and was unable to explain it.

"You don't know!" said Zorba in round-eyed astonishment, just like his expression the night I had confessed I could not dance.

He was silent a moment and then suddenly broke out.

"Well, all those damned books you read-what good are they? Why do you read them? If they don't tell you that, what do they tell you?"

"They tell me about the perplexity of mankind, who can give no answer to the question you've just put me, Zorba."

"Oh, damn their perplexity!" he cried, tapping his foot on the ground in exasperation.

The parrot started up at these noises.

"Canavaro! Canavaro!" he called, as if for help.

"Shut up! You, too!" shouted Zorba, banging on the cage with his fist.

He turned back to me.

"I want you to tell me where we come from and where we are going to. During all those years you've been burning yourself up consuming their black books of magic, you must have chewed over about fifty tons of paper! What did you get out of them?"

There was so much anguish in his voice that my heart was wrung with distress. Ah! how I would have liked to be able to answer him!

I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!

"Can't you answer?" asked Zorba anxiously.

I tried to make my companion understand what I meant by Sacred Awe.

"We are little grubs, Zorba, minute grubs on the small leaf of a tremendous tree. This small leaf is the earth. The other leaves are the stars that you see moving at night. We make our way on this little leaf examining it anxiously and carefully. We smell it; it smells good or bad to us. We taste it and find it eatable. We beat on it and it cries out like a living thing.

"Some men-the more intrepid ones-reach the edge of the leaf. From there we stretch out, gazing into chaos. We tremble. We guess what a frightening abyss lies beneath us. In the distance we can hear the noise of the other leaves of the tremendous tree, we feel the sap rising from the roots to our leaf and our hearts swell. Bent thus over the awe-inspiring abyss, with all our bodies and all our souls, we tremble with terror. From that moment begins…"

I stopped. I wanted to say "from that moment begins poetry," but Zorba would not have understood. I stopped.

"What begins?" asked Zorba's anxious voice. "Why did you stop?"

"… begins the great danger, Zorba. Some grow dizzy and delirious, others are afraid; they try to find an answer to strengthen their hearts, and they say: 'God!' Others again, from the edge of the leaf, look over the precipice calmly and bravely and say: 'I like it.'"

Zorba reflected for a long time. He was straining to understand.

"You know," he said at last, "I think of death every second. I look at it and I'm not frightened. But never, never, do I say I like it. No, I don't like it at all! I don't agree!"

He was silent, but soon broke out again.

"No, I'm not the sort to hold out my neck to Charon like a sheep and say: 'Cut my throat, Mr. Charon, please: I want to go straight to Paradise!'"

I listened to Zorba in perplexity. Who was the sage who tried to teach his disciples to do voluntarily what the law ordered should be done? To say "yes" to necessity and change the inevitable into something done of their own free will? That is perhaps the only human way to deliverance. It is a pitiable way, but there is no other.

But what of revolt? The proud, quixotic reaction of mankind to conquer Necessity and make external laws conform to the internal laws of the soul, to deny all that is and create a new world according to the laws of one's own heart, which are contrary to the inhuman laws of nature-to create a new world which is purer, better and more moral than the one that exists?

Zorba looked at me, saw that I had no more to say to him, took up the cage carefully so that he should not wake the parrot, placed it by his head and stretched out on the pebbles.

"Good night, boss!" he said. "That's enough."

A strong south wind was blowing from Africa. It was making the vegetables and fruits and Cretan breasts all swell and grow. I felt it on my forehead, lips and neck; and like a fruit my brain cracked and swelled.

I could not and would not sleep. I thought of nothing. I just felt something, someone growing to maturity inside me in the warm night. I lived lucidly through a most surprising experience: I saw myself change. A thing that usually happens only in the most obscure depths of our bowels was this time occurring in the open, before my eyes. Crouched by the sea, I watched this miracle take place.

The stars grew dim, the sky grew light and against this luminous background appeared, as if delicately traced in ink, the mountains, trees and gulls.

Dawn was breaking.

Several days went by. The corn had ripened and the heavy ears were hanging down with the weight of the grain. On the olive trees the cicadas sawed the air, and brilliant insects hummed in the burning light. Vapor was rising from the sea.

Zorba went off silently at dawn every day to the mountain. The work of installing the overhead line was nearing an end. The pylons were all in place, the cable was stretched ready and the pulleys fixed. Zorba came back from work at dusk, worn out. He lit the fire, made the evening meal, and we ate. We took care not to arouse the demons that were sleeping within us-death and fear; we never talked of the widow, or Dame Hortense, or God. Silently we gazed out over the sea.

Because of Zorba's silence, the eternal but vain questions rose up once more within me. Once more my breast was filled with anguish. What is this world? I wondered. What is its aim and in what way can we help to attain it during our ephemeral lives? The aim of man and matter is to create joy, according to Zorba-others would say "to create spirit," but that comes to the same thing on another plane. But why? With what object? And when the body dissolves, does anything at all remain of what we have called the soul? Or does nothing remain, and does our unquenchable desire for immortality spring, not from the fact that we are immortal, but from the fact that during the short span of our life we are in the service of something immortal?

One day I rose and washed, and the earth, it seemed, had also just risen and finished its ablutions. It shone as if it were a new creation. I went down to the village. On my left the indigo-blue sea was motionless, on my right in the distance glistened the fields of wheat, like an army flourishing a host of golden lances. I passed the Fig Tree of Our Young Lady, covered with green leaves and tiny little figs, hastened by the widow's garden without so much as turning my head, and entered the village. The small hotel was deserted now, abandoned. Doors and windows were missing, dogs walked in and out of the yard as they pleased, the rooms were empty. In the death chamber, the bed, trunk and chairs had all gone; there remained only a tattered slipper with a worn heel and red pompon, in one corner of the room. It still faithfully preserved the shape of its owner's foot. That wretched slipper, more compassionate than the human mind, had not yet forgotten the beloved but maltreated foot.

I was late returning. Zorba had already lit the fire and was preparing to cook. As he raised his eyes to greet me, he knew immediately where I had been. He frowned. After so many days of silence he unlocked his heart that evening and spoke.

"Every time I suffer, boss," he said, as though to justify himself, "it just cracks my heart in two. But it's all scarred and riddled with wounds already, and it sticks itself together again in a trice and the wound can't be seen. I'm covered with healed wounds, that's why I can stand so much."

"You've soon forgotten poor Bouboulina, Zorba," I said, in a tone which was somewhat brutal for me.

Zorba was piqued and raísed his voice.

"A fresh road, and fresh plans!" he cried. "I've stopped thinking all the time of what happened yesterday. And stopped asking myself what's going to happen tomorrow. What's happening today, this minute, that's what I care about. I say: 'What are you doing at this moment, Zorba?' 'I'm sleeping.' 'Well, sleep well.' 'What are you doíng at this moment, Zorba?' 'I'm working.' 'Well, work well.' 'What are you doing at this moment, Zorba?' 'I'm kissing a woman.' 'Well, kiss her well, Zorba! And forget all the rest while you're doing it; there's nothing else on earth, only you and her! Get on withit!'"

A few moments later he continued.

"When she, Bouboulina, was alive, you know, no kind of Canavaro had ever given her so much pleasure as I did-old rag-and-bone Zorba. Do you want to know why? Because all the Canavaros in the world, while they were kissing her, kept thinking about their fleets, or the king, or Crete, or their stripes and decorations, or their wives. But I used to forget everything else, and she knew that, the old trollop. And let me tell you this, my learned friend-there's no greater pleasure for a woman than that. A real woman-now listen to this and I hope it helps you-gets more out of the pleasure she gives than the pleasure she takes from a man."

He bent down to put some wood on the fire and was silent.

I looked at him and was very happy. I felt these minutes on that deserted shore to be simple but rich in deep human value. And our meal every evening was like the stews that sailors make when they land on some deserted beach-with fish, oysters, onions, and plenty of pepper; they are more tasty than any other dish and have no equal for nourishing a man's spirit. There, at the edge of the world, we were like two shipwrecked men.

"The day after tomorrow we get our line started," said Zorba, pursuing his train of thought. "I'm not walking on the ground any more; I'm a creature of the air. I can feel the pulleys on my shoulders!"

"Do you remember the bait you threw me in the Piraeus Restaurant to land me on the hook?" I asked. "You said you could cook wonderful soups-and it happens to be the dish I like best. How did you know?"

Zorba shook his head with slight scorn.

"I can't say, boss. It just came into my head like that. The way you were sitting there in the corner of the café, quiet, reserved, bent over that little gilt-edged book-I don't know, I just felt you liked soup, that's all. It just came to me like that; there's no understanding it!"

He suddenly stopped and leaned forward, listening.

"Quiet!" he said. "There's someone coming!"

We heard rapid footsteps and the heavy breathing of someone running. Suddenly there appeared in the flickering light of the flames a monk in a torn habit, bare headed, red bearded and with a small moustache. He brought with him a strong smell of paraffin.

"Ha! welcome, Father Zaharia!" cried Zorba. "What's put you in such a state?"

The monk sank to the floor near the fire. His chin was trembling.

Zorba leaned towards him and winked.

"Yes," said the monk.

"Bravo, monk!" cried Zorba. "Now you're sure to go to Paradise; you can't miss it! And you'll have a can of paraffin in your hand as you enter!"

"Amen!" murmured the monk, crossing himself.

"How did it work out? When? Come on, tell us!"

"I saw the archangel Michael, brother Canavaro. He gave me an order. Listen how it came: I was in the kitchen stringing some beans. I was all alone. The door was closed, the monks were at vespers; it was absolutely quiet, I could hear the birds singing outside, and it sounded like angels. I had prepared everything, and I was waiting. I'd bought a can of paraffin and hidden it in the chapel in the cemetery, beneath the holy table itself, so that the archangel Michael would bless it.

"So yesterday afternoon I was stringing beans and Paradise was running in my head. I was saying to myself: 'Lord Jesus, I deserve the Kingdom of Heaven, too, and I'm quite prepared to string beans for all eternity in the kitchens of Paradise!' That's what I was thinking, and the tears were running down my face. Suddenly I heard the beating of wings above me. I understood, and bent my head, trembling with fear. Then I heard a voice: 'Zaharia, look up and be not afraid.' But I was quaking so much I fell to the floor. 'Look up, Zaharia!' said the voice again. I looked up and saw. The door was open and on the threshold stood the archangel Michael, just as he is depicted on the doors of the sanctuary of the monastery, just the same; with black wings, red sandals and a golden halo; only instead of a sword he was holding a lighted torch. 'Hail, Zaharia!' he said. 'I'm the servant of God,' I answered. 'What do you command?' 'Take the flaming torch, and may the Lord be with you.' I held out my hand and felt my palms burn. But the archangel had disappeared. All I saw was a line of fire in the sky, like a shooting star."

The monk wiped the sweat off his face. He had gone quite white. His teeth were chattering as if he were feverish.

"Well?" said Zorba. "Bear up, Zaharia! What next?"

"Just at that moment the monks were coming away from vespers and going into the refectory. As he went by, the abbot kicked me like a dog, and all the monks laughed. I didn't say anythíng. After the visit of the archangel there was still a smell of sulphur in the air, but no one noticed it. 'Zaharia!' said the perceptor. 'Aren't you going to eat?' I kept my mouth shut.

"'Angels' food is enough for him!' said Demetrios, the Sodomite. The monks all laughed again. So I got up and walked away to the cemetery. I prostrated myself before the archangel… for hours I felt his foot heavy on my neck. The time passed like lightning. That is how the hours and the centuries will pass in Paradise. Midnight came. Everything was quiet. The monks had gone to bed. I stood up, crossed myself and kissed the archangel's foot. 'Thy will be done,' I said. I took the can of paraffin, opened it and went. I had stuffed my robe with rags.

"The night was as black as ink. The moon had not risen. The monastery was dark, as dark as hell. I went into the courtyard, climbed the steps and came to the abbot's quarters. I threw paraffin on the door, windows and walls. I ran to Demetrios's cell. There I started pouring paraffin all over the cells and along the big wooden gallery-just as you told me. Then I went into the chapel, lit a candle from the lamp before the statue of Christ and started the fire."

The monk was breathless now, and stopped. His eyes burned with an inner flame.

"God be praised!" he roared, crossing himself. "God be praised! In a moment the whole monastery was in flames. 'The flames of hell!' I shouted at the top of my voice and then ran away as fast as I could. I ran and ran, and I could hear the bells ringing, the monks shouting… and I ran and ran…

"Day came. I hid in the wood. I was shivering. The sun rose and I heard the monks searching the woods for me. But God sent a mist to cover me and they did not see me. Towards dusk, I heard a voice say: 'Go down to the sea! Away!' 'Guide me, guide me, archangel!' I cried, and started out. I didn't know which way I was going, but the archangel guided me, sometimes by means of a flash of lightning, at others by a dark bird in the trees, or by a path coming down the mountain. And I ran after him as hard as I could, trusting him completely. And his bounty is great, as you see! I've found you, my dear Canavaro! I'm saved!"

Zorba did not say a word, but there was a broad, sensual smile across his face, from the corners of his mouth to his hairy ass's ears.

Dinner was ready and he took the pot off the fire.

"Zaharia," he asked, "what is angels' food?"

"The spirit," answered the monk, crossing himself.

"The spirit? In other words, wind? That doesn't nourish a man; come and eat some bread and have some fish soup and a scrap or two of meat, then you'll feel yourself again. You've done a good job! Eat!"

"I'm not hungry," said the monk.

"Zaharia isn't hungry, but what about Joseph? Isn't he hungry either?"

"Joseph," said the monk in a low voice, as if he were revealing a deep mystery, "was burnt, curse his soul, burnt, God be praised!"

"Burnt!" cried Zorba with a laugh. "How? When? Did you see him burnt?"

"Brother Canavaro, he burnt the second I lit the candle at the lamp of Christ. I saw him with my own eyes come out of my mouth like a black ribbon with letters of fire. The flame from the candle fell on him and he writhed like a snake, but was burnt to ashes. What a relief! God be praised! I feel I've entered Paradise already!"

He rose from beside the fire, where he had curled up.

"I shall go and sleep on the sea shore; that was what I was ordered to do."

He walked away along the edge of the water and disappeared into the blackness of the night.

"You are responsible for him, Zorba," I said. "If the monks find him he's done for."

"They won't find him, don't you worry, boss. I know this sort of game too well: early tomorrow morning-I'll shave him, give him some really human clothes and put him on a ship. Don't bother yourself about him, it isn't worth it. Is the stew good? Eat a man's bread and enjoy it, and don't worry your head about all the rest!"

Zorba ate with a very good appetite, drank and wiped his moustache. Now he wanted to talk.

"Did you notice, boss?" he said. "His devil's dead. And now he's empty, poor fellow, completely empty, finished! He will be just like everybody else from now on!"

He thought for a moment or two.

"Do you think, boss, that this devil of his was…?"

"Of course," I replied. "The idea of burning the monastery had possessed him; now he's burnt it he's calmed. That idea wanted to eat meat, drink wine, ripen and turn into action. The other Zaharia had no need of wine or meat. He matured by fasting."

Zorba turned this over and over in his head.

"Why, I think you're right, boss! I think I must have five or six demons inside me!"

"We've all got some, Zorba, don't you worry. And the more we have, the better. The main thing is that they should all aim at the same end, even if they do go different ways about it."

These words seemed to move Zorba deeply. He lodged his big head between his knees and thought.

"What end?" he asked at last, raising his eyes to me.

"How should I know, Zorba? You ask difficult questions. How can I explain that?"

"Just say it simply, so that I understand. Up till now I've always let my demons do just what they liked, and go any way they liked about it-and that's why some people call me dishonest and others honest, and some think I'm crazy and others say I'm as wise as Solomon. I'm all those things and a lot more-a real Russian salad. So help me to get it clearer, will you, boss… what end?"

"I think, Zorba-but I may be wrong-that there are three kinds of men: those who make it their aim, as they say, to live their lives, eat, drink, make love, grow rich, and famous; then come those who make it their aim not to live their own lives but to concern themselves with the lives of all men-they feel that all men are one and they try to enlighten them, to love them as much as they can and do good to them; finally there are those who aim at living the life of the entire universe-everything, men, animals, trees, stars, we are all one, we are all one substance involved in the same terrible struggle. What struggle?… Turning matter into spirit."

Zorba scratched his head.

"I've got a thick skull, boss, I don't grasp these things easily… Ah, if only you could dance all that you've just said, then I'd understand."

I bit my lip in consternation. All those desperate thoughts, if only I could have danced them! But I was incapable of it; my life was wasted.

"Or if you could tell me all that in a story, boss. Like Hussein Aga did. He was an old Turk, a neighbor of ours. Very old, very poor, no wife, no children, completely alone. His clothes were worn, but shining with cleanliness. He washed them himself, did his own cooking, scrubbed and polished the floor, and at night used to come in to see us. He used to sit in the yard with my grandmother and a few other old women and knit socks.

"Well, as I was saying, this Hussein Aga was a saintly man. One day he took me on his knee and placed his hand on my head as though he were giving me his blessing. 'Alexis,' he said, 'I'm going to tell you a secret. You're too small to understand now, but you'll understand when you are bigger. Listen, little one: neither the seven stories of heaven nor the seven stories of the earth are enough to contain God; but a man's heart can contain him. So be very careful, Alexis-and may my blessing go with you-never to wound a man's heart!'"

I listened to Zorba in silence. If only I could never open my mouth, I thought, until the abstract idea had reached its highest point-and had become a story! But only the great poets reach a point like that, or a people, after centuries of silent effort.

Zorba stood up.

"I'm going to see what our firebrand's up to, and spread a blanket over him so that he doesn't catch cold. I'll take some scissors, too; it won't be a very first-class job."

He went off laughing along the edge of the sea, carrying the scissors and blanket. The moon had just come up and was spreading a livid, sickly light over the earth.

Alone by the dying fïre, I weighed Zorba's words-they were rich in meaning and had a warm earthy smell. You felt they came up from the depths of his being and that they still had a human warmth. My words were made of paper. They came down from my head, scarcely splashed by a spot of blood. If they had any value at all it was to that mere spot of blood they owed it.

Lying on my stomach, I was rummaging about in the warm cinders when Zorba returned, his arms hanging loosely by his side, and a look of amazement on his face.

"Boss, don't take it too hard…"

I leaped up.

"The monk is dead," he said.

"Dead?"

"I found him lying on a rock. He was in the full light of the moon. I went down on my knees and began cutting his beard off and the remains of his moustache. I kept cutting and cutting, and he didn't budge. I got excited and started cutting his thatch clean off; I must have taken at least a pound of hair off his face. Then when I saw him like that, shorn like a sheep, I just laughed, hysterically! 'I say, Signor Zaharia!' I cried, shaking him as I laughed. 'Wake up and see the miracle the Holy Virgin's performed!' Wake be damned! He didn't budge! I shook him again. Nothing happened! 'He can't have packed it in, poor fellow!' I said to myself. I opened his robe, bared his chest and put my hand over his heart. Tick-tick-tick? Nothing at all! The engine had stopped!"

As he talked Zorba regaíned his spirits. Death had made him speechless for an instant, but he had soon put it in its proper place.

"Now, what shall we do, boss? I think we ought to burn hím. He who kills others by paraffin shall perish by paraffin himself. Isn't there something like that in the Gospel? And with his clothes stiff with dirt and paraffin already, he'd flame up like Judas himself on Maundy Thursday!"

"Do what you like," I said, ill at ease.

Zorba became absorbed in profound meditation.

"It is a nuisance," he said at last, "a hell of a nuisance. If I set light to him, his clothes will flame like a torch, but he's all skin and bone himself, poor chap! Thin like he is, he'll take a devil of a time to burn to ashes. There's not an ounce of fat on him to help the fire."

Shaking his head, he added:

"If God existed, don't you think he would have known all this in advance and made him fat and fleshy to help us out? What do you think?"

"Don't mix me up with this business at all. You do just what you like, but do it quickly."

"The best thing would be if some sort of miracle occurred! The monks would have to believe that God himself had turned barber, shaved him and then did him in to punish him for the damage he did to the monastery."

He scratched his head.

"But what miracle? What miracle? This is where we've got you, Zorba!"

The crescent of the moon was on the point of disappearing below the horizon and was the color of burnished copper.

Tired, I went to bed. When I awoke at dawn, I saw Zorba making coffee close to me. He was white-faced and his eyes were all red and swollen from not sleeping. But his big goat-like lips wore a malicious smile.

"I haven't been to sleep, boss, I had some work to do."

"What work, you rascal?"

"I was doing the miracle."

He laughed and placed his finger across his lips. "I'm not going to tell you! Tomorrow is the inauguration ceremony for our cable railway. All those fat hogs will be here to give their blessing; then they'll learn about the new miracle performed by the Virgin of Revenge-great is her power!"

He served the coffee.

"You know, I'd make a good abbot, I think," he said. "If I started a monastery, I bet you I'd close all the others down and pinch all their customers. How would you like some tears? A tiny wet sponge behind the icons and the saints would weep at will. Thunder claps? I'd have a machine under the holy table which would make a deafening row. Ghosts? Two of the most trusty monks would roam about at night on the roof of the monastery wrapped in sheets. And every year I'd gather a crowd of cripples and blind and paralytics for her feast day and see that they all saw the líght of day again and stood up straight on their legs to dance to her glory!

"What is there to laugh at, boss? I had an uncle once who found an old mule on the point of death. He'd been left in the mountains to die. My uncle took him home. Every morning he took him out to pasture and at night back home. 'You there, Haralambos!' the people from the village shouted at him as he went past, 'what do you think you're doing wíth that old crock?' 'He's my dung factory!' answered my uncle. Well, boss, in my hands the monastery would be a miracle factory!"