"A photograph?"
"You'll see ... you'll see; don't be in so great a hurry! I made it myself. Come on, we'd better get a move on."
The midday sun was such as to gladden your very bones. The sea, too, was happily warming itself in the sun. In the distance the tiny uninhabited island, shrouded in light mist, looked as if it had raised itself out of the sea and was floating.
We approached the village, and Zorba came close to me and lowered hís voice.
"You know, boss," he said, "the person in question was at church. I was standing in front by the cantor when I suddenly saw the sacred icons light up. Christ, the Holy Virgin, the Twelve Apostles, everything shone… 'Whatever's happening?' I said, crossing. myself. 'Is it the sun?' I turned round—it was the widow!"
"All right, Zorba. That'll do," I said, hurrying on.
But Zorba ran after me.
"I saw her close to, boss. She's got a beauty spot on her cheek that's enough to send you crazy. Another of those mysteries—beauty spots on women's cheeks!"
He opened wide his eyes with an air of stupefaction.
"Have you noticed, boss? The skin's all soft and smooth, and then, all of a sudden, a black spot! Well, that's all that's needed! It sends you crazy! D'you understand that, boss? What d'your books say about it?"
"The devil take them!"
Zorba laughed, pleased with himself.
"That's the stuff!" he exclaimed. "That's the stuff. You're beginning to realize…"
We did not stop at the café; we pressed on.
Our good lady had cooked a sucking pig for us in the oven and was waiting for us on her doorstep.
She had put a canary-yellow ribbon round her neck once more, and, to see her like that—heavily powdered, lips plastered with a thick layer of crimson—was enough to dismay anyone. Was she, in fact, a ship's figurehead? As soon as she caught sight of us her whole flesh seemed to be gladdened and set in motion, her small eyes danced naughtily in her head and came to rest fixed on Zorba's curled-up moustache.
As soon as the outer door had closed behind us, Zorba took her by the waist.
"Happy New Year, my Bouboulina!" he said. "Look what we brought you!" And he kissed her plump and wrinkled neck.
The old siren was tickled for a moment, but did not lose her head. Her eyes were clamped on the present. She seized it, undid the golden string, looked inside and uttered a cry of joy.
I leaned forward to see what it was: on a thick piece of cardboard that rascal Zorba had drawn in four colors—red, gold, grey and black—four huge battleships, decked with flags, sailing on an indigo-blue sea. In front of the battleships, floating on the waves, all naked and white, with hair flowing, breasts in the air, and a spiral fish-tail, was a siren—Dame Hortense, complete with yellow ribbon round her neck! She was holding four strings and pulling behind her the four battleships flying the flags of England, Russia, France and Italy. In each corner of the picture hung a beard, one fair, one red, one grey, and one black.
The old singer understood immediately.
"Me!" she said, pointing proudly to the siren.
She sighed.
"Ah! I used to be a Great Power, too, once upon a time!"
She moved a small round mirror from over her bed, near to the parrot's cage, and, in its place, hung Zorba's picture. Beneath her thick make-up she must have gone pale.
Zorba, meanwhile, had slipped into the kitchen. He was hungry. He brought in the dish with the sucking pig, placed a bottle of wine on the table in front of him and filled three glasses.
"Come! Eat, eat!" he cried, clapping his hands together. "Let's begin with the foundation—the belly. After that, my sweet, we'll take care of what's below!"
But the atmosphere was troubled by the old siren's sighs. Each New Year, she, too, had a little Doomsday of her own ... she looked back on her life, weighed it up and found it wanting. Beneath this old woman's thinning hair, big cities, men, silk dresses, bottles of champagne and scented beards rose from the graves of her memory on all solemn occasions.
"I've no appetite," she murmured coyly. "None at all ... none at all…"
She kneeled down before the brazier and poked the hot coals. Her flabby cheeks reflected the light of the fire. A lock of hair slipped from her brow and was singed by a flame. The nauseating smell of burnt hair permeated the room.
"I won't eat ... I won't eat ..." she muttered once more, seeing we were taking no notice of her at all.
Zorba clenched his fists impatiently. He remained for a moment undecided. He could let her mutter to herself as much as she chose, while we got on with the roast pig—or he could throw himself on his knees, take her in his arms and calm her down with kind words. I watched his tanned face and saw, passing over his mobile features, waves of contradictory impulses.
Suddenly his expression set. He had come to a decision. He knelt beside her and seized the siren's knees.
"If you don't eat, my little charmer," he said in heart-rending tones, "it's the end of everything. Have pity on the poor pig, my lovely, and eat this sweet little trotter!" And he pushed into her mouth the crackling trotter covered with butter.
He took her in his arms, raised her from the ground, and placed her gently on her chair between the two of us.
"Èat," he said, "eat, my treasure, so that Saint Basil will come to our village! If you don't, you know, he won't come to us! He'll go back to his own country, to Caesarea. He'll pick up the inkhorn and paper, the Twelfth Cake, the New Year gifts, the children's toys, even this little sucking pig, and away with them all! So open your little mouth, my Bouboulina, and eat!"
He put out two fingers and tickled her under the arm. The old siren clucked with pleasure, wiped her small, reddened eyes and started busily to chew over the crackly trotter…
Just at that moment two amorous cats began to howl on the roof over our heads. They howled in an indescribable tone of hatred, their voices rising and falling, threateningly. Suddenly we heard them scrambling wildly on the roof, tearing one another to pieces.
"Miaow ... miaow ..." said Zorba, winking at the old siren.
She smiled and pressed his hand under the table. Her throat relaxed and she began to eat with appetite.
The sun moved round, came in through the small window and shone on the good lady's feet. The bottle was empty, Zorba had twisted up his moustaches like those of a wild cat and moved closed to the "female of the species." Dame Hortense, huddled up, her head sunk into her shoulders, shuddered as she felt his warm, vinous breath on her.
"Now, what's this other mystery, boss?" said Zorba, looking round at me. "Everything goes backwards with me. When I was a kid, so it seems, I looked like a little old man. I was dense, didn't talk much but had a big fellow's voice. They say I was like my grandad! But the older I grew, the more harum-scarum I became. I began doing wild things when I was twenty. Oh, nothing special, just the same as other fellows at that age. When I was forty I began to feel really young and went off on the maddest escapades. And now I'm over sixty—sixty-five, boss, but keep that dark—well, now I'm over sixty, how can I explain? Honestly, the world's grown too small for me!"
He raised his glass and turned with compunction to his lady.
"Your good health, Bouboulina," he said solemnly. "May God see to it that this year you grow some teeth and some neat eyebrows, and a new skin scented like a peach! And that you do away with all these beastly little ribbons! And that there's another revolution in Crete and the four Great Powers come back again. Bouboulina, my dear, with their fleets ... and that each fleet has its admiral and each admiral his curled and scented beard. And may you rise from the waves once more, my siren, singing your lovely song. And may the fleets break to pieces on these two round and savage rocks!"
Whereupon he placed his big hands on the good lady's flabby, hanging breasts…
Zorba was getting lively again, his voice was hoarse with desire. I laughed. One day, at the cinema, I had seen a Turkish pasha frolicking in a Paris cábaret. H
e was holding a fair-haired young midinette on his lap. The pasha was getting excited; the tassel on his fez began to rise slowly, stopped for a moment when it was horizontal, then suddenly stuck straight up in the air.
"What are you laughing at, boss?" Zorba asked.
The good lady, however, was still thinking of what Zorba had been saying.
"Oh," she said, "d'you think it's possible, Zorba? But when youth goes it never comes back…"
Zorba moved closer still; the two chairs stuck together.
"Listen to me, ducky," he said, trying at the same time to undo the third, the decisive button of her bodice. "Listen, let me tell you about the fine present I'm going to get you. There's a new doctor—Voronoff—who performs miracles, they say. He gives you a medicine of some kind—drops or powder. I don't know which—and you become twenty again in a trice—twenty-five at the worst! Don't cry, my dear, í'll have some sent from Europe for you…"
The old siren started. Her reddish scalp was gleaming between the thinning hair. She threw her fat, fleshy arms round Zorba's neck.
"If it's drops, my sweetie," she murmured, rubbing herself against Zorba like a cat, "you'll order a demijohn for me, won't you? And if it's powder ..."
"A sackful!" said Zorba, undoing the third button.
The cats, who had been quiet for a time, started their howling again. One of the voices was plaintive and appealing, the other angry and threatening.
Our good lady yawned and her eyes became languorous.
"D'you hear those horrid cats?" she muttered. "They've no shame!" And she sat on Zorba's knee. She leaned her head back against his neck and heaved a great sigh. She had drunk a little too much and her eyes were growing misty.
"What are you thinking about, my Bouboulina?" Zorba asked, clutching hold of her breasts.
"Alexandria ..." murmured the old siren, who had trundled about the world quite a bit. "Alexandria ... Beirut ... Constantinople ... the Turks, the Arabs, sherbet, golden sandals, red fezes…"
She heaved another sigh.
"When Ali Bey stayed the night with me—what a moustache, what eyebrows, what arms he had!—he'd call to the tambourine and flute players and throw them money through the window, so that they'd play in my courtyard until dawn. And the neighbors used to go green with envy: 'Ali Bey's there with her again!' they'd say in a rage.
"Afterwards, in Constantinople, Suleiman Pasha would never let me go out at all on Fridays. He was afraid the Sultan might see me on the way to the mosque and be so dazzled by my beauty he'd have me kidnapped. Every morning when he left the house he'd put three big negroes at the door to keep all males away from me… Ah! my little Suleiman!"
She took a large, checked handkerchief from her bodice and bit it, hissing like a turtle.
Zorba got rid of her by placing her on the chair next to him, and stood up, annoyed. He walked up and down once or twice and he began hissing as well; the room was suddenly too cramped for him. He picked up his stick and rushed out into the yard, and I saw him lean the ladder against the wall and clamber up, two steps at a time, in a fury.
"Who are you going to thrash, Zorba?" I shouted. "Suleiman Pasha?"
"Those damned cats!" he shouted. "Can't they leave us for a single moment?"
And in one bound he was on the roof.
Dame Hortense, quite drunk, her hair dishevelled, had now closed her inflamed eyes, and a discreet snore came from her toothless mouth. Sleep had lifted her up and transported her to the great cities of the East—into the closed gardens and dim harems of amorous pashas. Sleep let her pass through walls and sent her dreams. She could see herself fishing; she had thrown out four lines and caught up four great battleships.
Snoring and breathing heavily, the old siren smiled happily in her sleep, and seemingly refreshed by her bathe in the sea.
Zorba came back, swinging his stick.
"Sleeping, eh?" he said as he saw her. "The jade's asleep, is she?"
"Yes, Zorba Pasha," I answered. "She's been carried off by the Doctor Voronoff who makes old people young again—sleep. She's only twenty, and she's strolling about Alexandria and Beirut…"
"Let her go to the devil, the old slut!" Zorba growled, and spat on the floor. "Just look at the way she's grinning! I wonder who she's grinning at, the brazen bitch? Come on, boss, let's go!"
He slapped on his cap and opened the door.
"She's not all on her own," cried Zorba; "she's with Suleiman Pasha. Can't you see? She's in her seventh heaven, the dirty cow! ... Come on. Let's beat it!"
We went out into the cold air. The moon was sailing across a calm sky.
"Women!" said Zorba in disgust. "Ugh! Still, it's not your fault, it's the fault of hare-brained harum-scarums like Suleiman and Zorba!"
And after a moment's pause:
"No, it's not even our fault," he went on furiously. "There's one being who's the cause of it all, and one alone—the Grand Hare-brained Harum-scarum, the Grand Suleiman Pasha ... you know who!"
"If he exists," I answered. "What if he doesn't?"
"God Almighty, then we're done for!"
For some time we strode along without a word. Zorba was certainly going over some wild ideas in his mind, because every second or so he would lash out at the pebbles with his stick and spit on the ground.
Suddenly he turned to me.
"May God sanctify my grandad's bones!" he said. "He knew a thing or two about women. He liked them a lot, poor wretch, and they led him a regular dance in his lifetime. 'By all the good things I wish you, Alexis, my boy,' he'd say, 'beware of women! When God took Adam's rib out to create woman—curse that minute!—the devil turned into a serpent, and pff! he snatched the rib and ran off with it… God dashed after him and caught him, but he slipped out of his fingers and God was left with just the devil's horns in his hands. "A good housekeeper," said God, "can sew even with a spoon. Well, I'll create a woman with the devil's horns!" And he did; and that's how the devil got us all, Alexis my boy. No matter where you touch a woman, you touch the devil's horns. Beware of her, my boy! She also stole the apples in the garden of Eden; she shoved them down her bodice, and now she goes out and about, strutting all over the place. A plague on her! Eat any of those apples and you're lost; don't eat any and you'll still be lost! What advice can I give you, then, my boy? Do as you please!' That's what my old grandad said to me. But how could you expect me to grow up sensible? I went the same way as he did—I went to the devil!"
We hurried through the village. The moonlight was disturbing. Imagíne how ít would be if you had been drinking and came out for a walk and found the world suddenly transformed. The roads had turned into rivers of milk, the holes in the road and the ruts overflowed with chalk, the hills were covered with snow. Your hands, face and neck were phosphorescent, like a glowworm's tail. And the moon hung on your chest like an exotic round medal.
We were walkíng along briskly, in silence. Intoxicated by the moonlight as well as by the wine, we hardly felt our feet touch the ground. Behind us, in the sleeping village, the dogs had got up on the roofs and were howling at the moon. And we, for no reason at all, also felt a desire to stretch our necks towards the moon and begin to howl…
We came to the widow's garden. Zorba stopped. Wine, good food and the moon had turned his head. He craned his neck and, in his big ass's voice, began to bray a bawdy couplet which, in his excited state, he composed on the spur of the moment.
"She's another of the devil's horns!" he said. "Let's go, boss!"
Dawn was about to break when we arrived at the hut. I threw myself on my bed, worn out. Zorba washed, lit the stove and made some coffee. He crouched on the floor by the door, lit a cigarette and began to smoke placidly, his body straight and motionless as he looked out at the sea. His face was grave and thoughtful. He reminded me of a Japanese painting I like: an ascetic sitting on his crossed legs and wrapped in a long orange-colored robe; his face shining like a carving in hard wood, blackened by the rain; his neck erect, smiling as he g
azes, without fear, into the dark night…
I looked at Zorba in the light of the moon and admired the jauntiness and simplicity with which he adapted himself to the world around him, the way his body and soul formed one harmonious whole, and all things—women, bread, water, meat, sleep—blended happily with his flesh and became Zorba. I had never seen such a friendly accord between a man and the universe.
The moon would soon be setting now. It was round and of a pale green. An indescribable peacefulness spread across the sea.
Zorba threw away his cigarette and reached out for a basket. He fumbled in it and pulled out some string, pulleys and little pieces of wood; he lit the oil-lamp and once more started to experiment with his overhead railway. Stooping over his primitive toy, he began to make calculations which must have been extremely complicated and difficult, for every other second he scratched his head furiously and swore.
Suddenly he had had enough of it. He aimed one kick at the model and it crashed to the ground.
12
SLEEP OVERCAME ME, and when I awoke Zorba had gone. It was cold and I did not have the slightest desire to rise. I reached up to some bookshelves above my head and took down a book which I had brought with me and of which I was fond: the poems of Mallarmé. I read slowly and at random. I closed the book, opened it again, and finally threw it down. For the first time in my life it all seemed bloodless, odorless, void of any human substance. Pale-blue, hollow words in a vacuum. Perfectly clear distilled water without any bacteria, but also without any nutritive substances. Without life.
In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls. Something similar had happened to this poetry. The ardent aspirations of the heart, laden with earth and seed, had become a flawless intellectual game, a clever, aerial and intricate architecture.
I reopened the book and began reading again. Why had these poems gripped me for so many years? Pure poetry! Life had turned into a lucid, transparent game, unencumbered by even a single drop of blood. The human element is brutish, uncouth, impure—it is composed of love, the flesh and a cry of distress. Let it be sublimated into an abstract ídea, and, in the crucible of the spirit, by various processes of alchemy, let it be rarefied and evaporate.