He held out his hand and suddenly his arm came off from his shoulder and sailed through the air to seize my hand.
I was horrified by his icy grasp and woke with a start and a cry.
That was the moment when I discovered the chough hovering above my head. My lips seemed to be exuding poison.
I turned towards the east, riveting my eyes on the horizon as though wishing to penetrate the distance and see… I was sure my friend was in danger. I shouted his name three times:
"Stavridaki! Stavridaki! Stavridaki!"
As if I wanted to give him courage. But my voice was lost a few yards in front of me and faded into the atmosphere.
I rushed headlong down the mountainside track, trying to deaden my sorrow by fatigue. My brain struggled in vain to piece together those mysterious messages which sometimes manage to pierce the body and reach the soul. In the depths of my being, a strange certainty, deeper than reason, entirely animal in quality, filled me with terror. The same certainty which some beasts—sheep and rats—feel before an earthquake. Awakening in me was the soul of the first men on earth, such as it was before it became totally detached from the universe, when it still felt the truth directly, without the distorting influence of reason.
"He is in danger! He is in danger!" I murmured. "He is going to die! Perhaps he doesn't realize it yet himself, but I know it, I'm sure of it…"
I ran down the mountain path, stumbled over a pile of stones and fell to the ground, scattering the stones. I jumped up again With grazed and bleeding hands and legs.
"He is going to die! He is going to die!" I said, and felt a lump rise in my throat.
Luckless man has raised what he thinks is an impassable barrier round his poor little existence. He takes refuge there and tries to bring a little order and security into his life. A little happiness. Everything must follow the beaten track, the sacrosanct routine, and comply with safe and simple rules. Inside this enclosure, fortified against the fierce attacks of the unknown, his petty certainties, crawling about like centipedes, go unchallenged. There is only one formidable enemy, mortally feared and hated: the Great Certainty. Now, this Great Certainty had penetrated the outer walls of my existence and was ready to pounce upon my soul.
When I reached our beach, I stopped to take breath for a moment. It was as though I had reached the second line of my defences and I pulled myself together. All these messages, I thought, are born of our own inner anxiety, and in our sleep assume the brilliant garb of a symbol. But we ourselves are the ones who create them… I grew calmer. Reason was calling my heart to order, clipping the wings of that strange palpitating bat, and clipping and clipping until it could fly no more.
When I arrived at the hut, I was smiling at my own simplicity. I was ashamed that my mind had been so quickly overcome by panic. I dropped back into everyday reality. I was hungry and thirsty, I felt exhausted, and the cuts made by the stones on my limbs were smarting. My heart felt reassured: the terrible enemy who had penetrated the outer walls had been held in check by the second line of defence round my soul.
26
IT WAS ALL OVER. Zorba collected the cable, tools, trucks, iron scrap and timber, and made a heap of it on the beach, ready for the caique which was to load it.
"I'll make you a present of that, Zorba," I said. "It's all yours. Good luck!"
Zorba swallowed as íf trying to hold back a sob.
"Are we separating?" he murmured. "Where are you going, boss?"
"I'm leaving for abroad, Zorba. The old goat within me has still got a lot of papers to chew over."
"Haven't you learned any better yet, boss?"
"Yes, Zorba, thanks to you. But í'm going to adopt your system; I'm going to do with my books what you did with the cherries. I'm going to eat so much paper, it'll make me sick. I shall spew it all up and then be rid of it forever."
"And what's going to become of me without your company, boss?"
"Don't fret, Zorba, we shall meet again, and, who knows, man's strength is tremendous! One day we'll put our great plan into effect: we'll build a monastery of our own, without a god, without a devil, but with free men; and you shall be the gatekeeper, Zorba, and hold the great keys to open and close the gate—like Saint Peter ..."
Zorba, seated on the ground with his back against the side of the hut, continually filled and refilled his glass, drinking and saying nothing.
Night had fallen, we had finished our meal. We were sipping wine and having our last talk. Early the following morning we were to separate.
"Yes, yes ..." said Zorba, pulling at his moustache and taking a drink. "Yes, yes ..."
Above us, the night was starlit; within us, our hearts longed for relief but still held back.
Say goodbye to him forever, I thought to myself. Take a good look at him; never, never again will you set eyes on Zorba!
I could have thrown myself upon his old bosom and wept, but I was ashamed. I tried to laugh to hide my emotion, but I could not. I had a lump in my throat.
I looked at Zorba as he craned his neck like a bird of prey and drank in silence. I watched him and I reflected what a truly baffling mystery is this life of ours. Men meet and drift apart again like leaves blown by the wind; your eyes try in vain to preserve an image of the face, body or gestures of the person you have loved; in a few years you do not even remember whether his eyes were blue or black.
The human soul should be made of brass; it should be made of steel! I cried within me. Not just of air!
Zorba was drinking, holding his big head erect, motionless. He seemed to be listening to steps approaching in the night or retreating into the innermost depths of his being.
"What are you thinking about, Zorba?"
"What am I thinking about, boss? Nothing. Nothing, I tell you! I wasn't thinking of anything."
After a moment or two, filling up his glass again, he saíd:
"Good health, boss!"
We clinked glasses. We both knew that so bitter a feelíng of sadness could not last much longer. We would have to burst into tears or get drunk, or begin to dance like lunatics.
"Play, Zorba!" I suggested.
"Haven't I already told you, boss? The santuri needs a happy heart. I'll play in a month's, perhaps two months' time—how can I tell? Then I'll sing about how two people separate forever."
"Forever!" I cried terrified. I had been saying that irremediable word to myself, but had not expected to hear it said out loud. I was frightened.
"Forever!" Zorba repeated, swallowing his saliva with some difficulty. "That's it—forever. What you've just said about meeting again, and building our monastery, all that is what you tell a sick man to put him on his feet. I don't accept it. I don't want it. Are we weak like women to need cheering up like that? Of course we aren't. Yet, it's forever!"
"Perhaps I'll stay here with you ..." I said, appalled by Zorba's desperate affection for me. "Perhaps I shall come away with you. I'm free."
Zorba shook his head.
"No, you're not free," he said. "The string you're tied to is perhaps no longer than other people's. That's all. You're on a long piece of string, boss; you come and go, and think you're free, but you never cut the string in two. And when people don't cut that ..."
"I'll cut it some day!" I said defiantly, because Zorba's words had touched an open wound in me and hurt.
"It's difficult, boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do that; folly, d'you see? You have to risk everything! But you've got such a strong head, it'll always get the better of you. A man's head is like a grocer; it keeps accounts: I've paid so much and earned so much and that means a profit of this much or a loss of that much! The head's a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string. Ah no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! If the string slips out of its grasp, the head, poor devil, is lost, finished! But if a man doesn't break the string, tell me, what flavor is left in life? The flavor of camomile, weak camomile t
ea! Nothing like rum—that makes you see life inside out!"
He was silent, helped himself to some more wine, but started to speak again.
"You must forgive me, boss," he said. "I'm just a clodhopper. Words stick between my teeth like mud to my boots. I can't turn out beautiful sentences and compliments. I just can't. But you understand, I know."
He emptied his glass and looked at me.
"You understand!" he cried, as if suddenly filled with anger. "You understand, and that's why you'll never have any peace. If you didn't understand, you'd be happy! What d'you lack? You're young, you have money, health, you're a good fellow, you lack nothing. Nothing, by thunder! Except just one thing—folly! And when that's missing, boss, well ..."
He shook his big head and was silent again.
I nearly wept. All that Zorba said was true. As a child I had been full of mad ímpulses, superhuman desires, I was not content with the world. Gradually, as time went by, I grew calmer. I set limits, separated the possible from the impossible, the human from the divine, I held my kite tightly, so that it should not escape.
A large shooting star streaked across the sky. Zorba started and opened wide his eyes as if he were seeing a shooting star for the first time in his life.
"Did you see that star?" he asked.
"Yes."
We were silent.
Suddenly Zorba craned his scraggy neck, puffed out his chest and gave a wild, despairing cry. And immediately the cry canalized itself into human speech, and from the depths of Zorba's being rose an old monotonous melody, full of sadness and solitude. The heart of the earth itself split in two and released the sweet, compellíng poison of the East. I felt inside me all the fibers still linking me to courage and hope slowly rotting.
Iki kiklik bir tependé otiyor Otme dé, kiklik, bemin dertim yetiyor, aman! aman!
Desert, fine sand, as far as eye can see. The shimmering air, pink, blue, yellow; your temples bursting. The soul gives a wild cry and exults because no cry comes in response. My eyes filled with tears.
A pair of red-legged partridges were piping on a hillock; Partridges, pipe no more! My own suffering is enough for me, aman! aman!
Zorba was silent. With a sharp movement of his fingers he wiped he sweat off his brow. He leaned forward and stared at the ground.
"What is that Turkish song, Zorba?" I asked after a while.
"The camel driver's song. It's the song he sings in the desert. I hadn't sung it or remembered it for years. But just now ..."
He raised his head, his voice was sharp, his throat constricted.
"Boss," he said, "it's time you went to bed. You'll have to get up at dawn tomorrow if you're going to catch the boat at Candia. Good night!"
"I'm not sleepy," I said. "I'm going to stay up with you. This is our last night together."
"That's just why we must end it quickly!" he cried, turning down his empty glass as a sign he did not wish to drink any more. "Here and now, just like that. As men cut short smoking, wine, and cards. Like a Greek hero, a Palikari,
"My father was a real Palikari. Don't look at me, I'm only a breath of air beside him. I don't come up to his ankles. He was one of those ancient Greeks they always talk about. When he shook your hand he nearly crushed your bones to pulp. I can talk now and then, but my father roared, neighed and sang. There very rarely came a human word out of his mouth...
"Well, he had all the vices, but he'd slash them, as you would with a sword. For instance, he smoked like a chimney. One morning he got up and went into the fields to plough. He arrived, leaned on the hedge, pushed his hand into his belt for his tobacco pouch to roll a cigarette before he began work, took out his pouch and found it was empty. He'd forgotten to fill it before leaving the house.
"He foamed with rage, let out a roar, and then bounded away towards the village. His passion for smoking completely unbalanced his reason, you see. But suddenly—I've always said I think a man's a mystery—he stopped, filled with shame, pulled out his pouch and tore it to shreds with his teeth, then stamped it in the ground and spat on it. 'Filth! Filth!' he bellowed. 'Dirty slut!'
"And from that hour, until the end of his days, he never put another cigarette between his lips.
"That's the way real men behave, boss. Good night!"
He stood up and strode across the beach. He did not look back
once. He went as far as the fringe of the sea and stretched himself out there on the pebbles.
I never saw him again. The muleteer arrived before cock-crow. I climbed into the saddle and left. I may be mistaken, but I suspect that Zorba was hidden somewhere about, watching me leave, though he did not run up to say the usual words of farewell, to make us sad and tearful, to shake hands and wave handkerchiefs and exchange vows.
Our separation was as clean as a sword cut.
In Candia I was given a telegram. I took it with trembling hands and looked at it for some time before I opened it. I knew what it said. I could see with a terrifying certainty the number of words, even the number of letters it contained.
I was seized with the desire to tear it to pieces without opening it. Why read it when I knew what was inside? But we no longer have faith in our souls, alas! Reason, the eternal grocer, laughs at the soul, as we ourselves laugh at witches and old women who cast spells. Or at eccentric old ladies. So I opened the telegram. It was from Tiflis. For a moment the letters danced before my eyes, I could not make out a word. But slowly they came to a standstill and I read:
YESTERDAY AFTERNOON STAVRIDAKI DIED FROM PNEUMONIA.
Five years went by, five long years of terror, during which time gathered speed, and geographical frontiers joined the dance, national boundaries expanded and contracted like so many concertinas. Zorba and I were carried away by the storm; though from time to time, in the first three years, I had a brief card from him.
One from Mount Athos—a card of the Virgin, Guardian of the Gates, with her big sad eyes and her strong and determined chin. Beneath the Virgin Zorba had written with his thick, heavy pen, which always scratched the paper: "No chance of doing business here, boss! The monks here even fleece their fleas! I'm leaving!" A few days later another card: "I can't go round all these monasteries holding the parrot in my hand like a travelling showman. I made a present of it to a comic sort of monk who had taught a blackbird to whistle Kyrie Eleison beautifully. The little devil sings like a real monk; it shocks you to hear him. He's going to teach our poor parrot to sing, too. Ah! the things that rascal's seen in his lifetime! And now he's become a holy father, our parrot has! All the best. Father Alexios, holy anchorite."
Six or seven months later I had a card from Rumania showing a very buxom woman wearing a low-necked dress.
I'm still alive, I'm eating mamaliga[33] and drinking vodka. I work in the oil mines and am as dirty and stinking as any sewer rat. But who cares? you can find here plenty of all your heart and belly can desire. A real paradise for old rascals like me. Do you understand, boss? A wonderful life ... plenty of sweetmeats, and sweethearts into the bargain, God be praised! All the best.
Alexis Zorbescu, sewer rat.
Two years went by. I received another card, this time from Serbia.
I'm still alive. It's hellishly cold, so I've been obliged to get married. Turn over and you'll see her face—a fine bit of female stuff. She's a trifle fat about the middle because she's cooking up a little Zorba for me. I am standing at her side wearing the suit you gave me, and the wedding ring you see on my hand is poor old Bouboulina's—nothing is impossible! God bless her remains! This one's name is Lyuba. The coat with fox-fur collar I'm wearing is part of my wife's dowry. She also brought me a mare and seven pigs—a funny lot they are! And two children from her first marriage, because I forgot to say she was a widow. I've found a copper mine in a mountain close by here. I've managed to get round another capitalist and am now taking it very easy, like a pasha. All the best.
Alexis Zorbic', ex-widower.
On the back of the card was a pho
tograph of Zorba in splendid form, dressed as a newlywed, with a fur cap and a long new overcoat and carrying a swagger cane. On his arm was a beautiful Slav woman of no more than twenty-five, a wild mare with generous haunches, looking tempting and roguish, wearing high boots and graced with an ample bosom. Beneath the photograph was some more of Zorba's pot-hooked writing: "Me, Zorba, and that unending business, women—this time her name's Lyuba."
All those years I was travelling abroad. I also had my unending business, but it had no ample bosom, no new coat, no pigs to give me.
One day in Berlin came a telegram: FOUND A WONDERFUL GREEN STONE. COME IMMEDIATELY, ZORBA.
It was the time of the great famine in Germany. The mark had fallen so low that you were obliged to carry millions of them about in a suitcase to buy even the smallest thing, like a postage stamp. Famine, cold, worn clothes, shoes full of holes everywhere—and the ruddy German cheeks had grown pale. If there was a slight breeze, men fell down in the street like leaves before the wind. Mothers gave their children pieces of rubber to chew to stop them crying. At night the police kept guard on the bridges across the river to prevent mothers from throwing themselves over, with their children in their arms, just to bring it all to an end somehow.
It was winter and it was snowing. In the room next to mine a German professor of oriental languages tried to warm himself by taking a long brush in his hand and, after the painful custom of the Far East, copying out some old Chinese poems or a saying from Confucius. The tip of the brush, the raised elbow and the heart of the writer had to form a triangle.
"After a few minutes," he used to tell me with satisfaction, "sweat begins to pour off me. That's how I get warm."
It was in the midst of bitter days such as those that I received Zorba's telegram. At first I was angry. Millíons of men were sinking into degradation because they hadn't even a crust of bread to sustain their bodies and souls, and here came a telegram asking me to set out and travel thousands of miles to see a beautiful green stone! To hell wíth beauty! She has no heart and does not care a jot for human suffering!