GREGORY and other stories

Aspect

Vagabond Street

…and then one day we were demobilised.

We didn’t throw our caps into the air nor did we rush to get rid of our uniforms.

So we won???!!!

And we sat down in the tavern.

Later we each received a letter: on a certain day at a certain time at a certain port. Destination Cyprus.

So! Cyprus still exists? We’d better go, then, my muleteer pals… We’ll get some hand-outs there…

We changed our underwear, licked our boots and set off. We stacked our kitbags in the hold.

They’re heavy, mates, the deckhand commented.

They’re full of boots…

Of course!

We had a few hours. We piled once more into the tavern.

We had a good time, didn’t we?!

When?

All these years…

Oh yes! If this war hadn’t happened, would we have ever ventured out from the ‘Sweet Land’…?

We’ll have stories to tell!

Have I told you about Giovanna?

Twenty times!

Let’s make it twenty-one.

Before beginning he drained his glass. So did we. Slurping and smacking etc were anathema while he was talking.

It was at night they began the bombing. And those damned bombs were the only things I was afraid of during my five years of being a hero!

Humph! said my neighbour scornfully. Bullshit! There’s only one thing I consider depressing. Death blindfold, at random. Not bombs, not mines, not bedbugs. Not to know which bastards you’re firing at, who is firing at you. That! At fucking random. Why are you looking at me like that, bums?

It wasn’t your turn.

He shrugged his shoulders.

Pardon me! Back to the bombs!

But the first guy had taken it to heart. He didn’t want to continue. We had to move heaven and earth to persuade him.

Come on, mate! Are you going to leave us in suspense?

Are we going to be gloomy on our last day?

Come on, have another drink… OK now?

He emptied his glass as the rest of us tried to hide our amusement.

And at last he began.

It happened to me when one damned bomb exploded next to the embankment. Forget that the mule farted too… Tonight, I say, you’re not going to escape mate! I was all alone in the pitch-black dark. I crawled into my skin. Then a hand suddenly gripped me… Are you the new one? They’ve brought him out very young. He’ll get used to it. If only he wasn’t so sweaty… You’re soaking me, bastard, I say. In a while, when the All Clear sounded and the lights came on, he was still there, gripping me! Let go of me, I say and turn round. He wasn’t there… It was a just hand attached to an arm cut off at the elbow. When I told the others what had happened, they split their sides with laughing… We looked for the owner. A needle in a haystack. One of our men from another platoon told me that they had found an identity disc and a wedding ring on the ground. We put them on the hand and buried it in a grassy spot…

He paused for a moment and then went on:

From then on, as soon as I heard a siren I pissed myself, so to speak. But I was lucky and I told Giovanna about my problem. I met her in Genoa, in the convalescent home. She was short and plump, full of freckles. You could sleep with her for a full mess-can. She stuffed herself and swore like a navvy. Especially when sober. When drunk, she was a sweetie. At any rate, she took to me, stood by me. When I told her about my fear she said, There’s only one cure, my boy. Bring me your tins of food as soon as the sirens sound … I tried it and it worked. Parole! At the next alert, I ran to her little room, undressed her and buried myself between her legs. I was shaking all over. My mouth was poison and my ears were buzzing … I wanted to throw up and begged a shell to fall on my head, to be done with it… Then Giovanna buried her hand in my clothes and began caressing me … I became a hedgehog … Yes, a bit more …my eyes went dark, I curled up, my teeth were an orchestra … I wanted to bury myself completely inside her, to make her feel pain. But Giovanna kept stroking my hair, like a mother! She smiled. And called me her baby. The bombs began falling again, coloured her white breasts, flashed in her eyes which were watching the light bulb spinning round, the shutters falling apart … From that evening, any way, I lost my fear! It was all over! Parole! She was a wonderful woman. I never felt such sweetness with any of the other women I slept with. I don’t know, perhaps because I got used to different things, bombs and suchlike. Right up to now, whenever I go with a woman, I have a lot of difficulty doing it. I don’t know why, but I can’t.

And he fell into deep thought.

Patience… In the next war you’ll be all right again…

Then a third took over. He rarely talked.

I bet you won’t believe what happened to me. How long have we been here? During all this time my mind has been fixed on my old mother’s mouth. As she was saying goodbye outside in the road under the street lamp, I noticed her lips. They were trembling in a way… I’d never seen such a thing, as if something inside was jogging them. There was down on them too, thickish.

From sorrow?

Maybe… The poor old girl. It’s two years now.

Two? Five whole years, sixty months.

I meant something else.

The other one understood and shut up. He stubbed out his cigarette end.

Giovanna too. Soon after Yalta.

From what?

How should I know?

That’s it. Random, as we were saying…

One looked at his watch.

It’s time we went, lads!

Sit down, idiot. We’ve got time.

The boat will leave, he said.

No chance of that.

We ordered another bottle. We were still drinking when the silent one of the party remembered that a few days before he had found himself in a terrific neighbourhood or a street rather, somewhere thereabouts. What was its name, oh God, a stupid name… Ah yes! The Street of Vagabonds.

We all woke up. That’s it! The very thing! We told him off for not telling us about it till the last minute…

Well, in this street, a one-way street he said, when he thought about it well, there live permanently or frequent all those who have grown old and all those who have shrivelled in the last few years… They sleep on benches or on the cobbles, wrapped up in newspapers, magazines or off-prints of paintings. Where they spring from only God knows. They sleep soundly, he says. They don’t snore, smile or dream. Their souls hover between coma and samadi.*

In the summer it’s fine and nice for them. Cool and blissful. But in the winter the cold decimates them. They freeze to death. They throw them in a pile in the municipal cart, drawn by two old hacks, which appears unburdened at one end, the western one, of the street and leaves on the point of collapse at the other end, grinding along eastwards.

But the street never empties. Newcomers sail in by the dozen. The reputation of the Street has spread everywhere. Now, especially after demobilisation, the graph of new arrivals, which the fat – and sole – tavern owner of the street keeps, shows a sharp rise.

My customers are good fellows, he says. Broke but generous. A joy to the soul. They do what they fancy without providing for tomorrow!

Imagine! Anyway, the municipality provides.

The illiterate, semi-literate and the barely educated are few in number. Most of them are educated, teachers or graduates, artists and scientists. Their specialisations and their interests are many, the whole range from the most positive to the theoretical and metaphysical. They adore and interpret Einstein, Plavatski, Krisnamurti, Marx, Spinoza, Eliot, Pound, Picasso and Kandinsky, Nostradamus and innumerable others…

Sometimes they are silent for hours and the street is transformed into a Pythagorean Omakoio.*

Sometimes their discussions fill the cobbled street with voltaic arrows. They discuss in a civilised manner. They refer to rare writings with sonorous Latin and Greek titles, recite verses, solve problems on the asphalt with chalk. At other times they run amok. They flare up, draw knives, shower abuse on each other, go on and on. A Symphony of Psalms. The rumpus lasts for hours. Then calm returns. They fall silent and rest their foreheads against the walls. They make love or masturbate. And peace is restored.

The street has a fascination all of its own. It recalls the pit which swallowed up the sickly and unruly children of Sparta and the River Pactolus, where Midas bathed and was freed of the power of turning everything he touched into gold… Its populace may be good, without shame, or bad without giving a damn about the opinion of others. They can spend their life without compromises and when occasionally they are forced to make them, they can, and with every good reason, boast of generosity and magnanimity.

That’s something, too!

They have only one permanent problem: how to secure the pence which they will deposit, as tribute, with their friend the tavern keeper in the evening. This tribute is their last link with the world of necessity. They must drink their wine at this tavern. Nowhere else. As far as they are concerned, wine and tavern have lost their independent existence, have become synonymous concepts. Together they are life, joy, consummation. Separate, they are indifference, boredom, submission.

But this tavern keeper is so polite! As soon as he sees them enter he falls over himself.

What news today, boys?

Forget it. Bad. The dog’s dead.

You don’t say! Today, when I had a lot of bones…

And Anna…

Oh, the poor thing! Isn’t she the one who recited Shakespeare?

And he starts, in his deep voice, to recite the lines she liked:

Full fathom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are coral made,

Those are pearls that were his eyes,

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong bell.

Ding!

Dong!

Ding!

Bravo!

Wonderful!

Ariel didn’t die.

No. Anna died.

Before she died she made a wish. That we should be transformed into cats or dogs with thick fur and damp noses…

…

This tavern pleases them so much that, if they cannot pinch a wallet, they are obliged to hold out their hand for alms. Even them! But for them to dare to do it, to make this degrading gesture, they must be sure that no human eye sees them Even then they try to preserve as much of their pride as has survived.

Just a couple of pence, sir! they say. For wine. Two are enough.

We were all agog.

What do you say? Shall we go?

We set off to find the Street. To talk to them, treat them to a beer.

The Street had vanished. At every corner we had hope. It’ll be here.

Bad luck.

We went further down. And further. We ploughed the city. The Street was nowhere.

Tough. We gave up and asked a copper.

He glared at us.

What street? he spluttered.

We got to the port two hours late. The ship had sailed.

Damn it!

That’s the end of our boots, too…

From the collection:

In Ethereal Cyprus, Fexis Publications, Athens 1964

Translated by Christine Georghiades

* Bliss attained through meditation.

* Room in which students listened to Pythagoras without being allowed to speak themselves.

Gregory

My hand was sweating as I held the pistol. The curve of the trigger was biting against my finger.

Facing me, Gregory trembled.

His whole being was beseeching me, Don’t!

Only his mouth did not make a sound. His lips were squeezed tight. If it had been me, I would have screamed, shouted, cursed.

The soldiers were watching…

The day before, during a brief meeting, they had each given their opinions: It’s tough luck, but it has to be done. We’ve got no choice.

The order from Headquarters was clear: As soon as Lieutenant Rafel’s execution is announced, the hostage Gregory is to be shot and his body must be hanged from a telegraph pole in the main street as an exemplary punishment.

It was not the first time that I had to execute a hostage in this war. I had acquired experience, thanks to Headquarters which had kept entrusting me with these delicate assignments. Gregory’s case was precisely the sixth.

The first time, I remember, I vomited. The second time I got sick and had a headache for days. The third time I drank a bottle of rum. The fourth, just two glasses of beer. The fifth time I joked about it, This little guy, with the big pop-eyes, won’t be much of a ghost!

But why, dammit, when the day came did I have to start thinking that I’m not so tough, after all? The thought had come at exactly the wrong time and spoiled my disposition to do my duty.

You see, this Gregory was such a miserable little creature, such a puny thing, such a nobody, damn him.

That very morning, although he had heard over the loudspeakers that Rafel had been executed, he believed that we would spare his life because we had been eating together so long.

Those who eat from the same mess tins and drink from the same water canteen, he said, remain good friends no matter what.

And a lot more of the same sort of nonsense.

He was a silly fool - we had smelled that out the very first day Headquarters gave him to us. The sentry guarding him had got dead drunk and had dozed off. The rest of us with exit permits had gone from the barracks. When we came back, there was Gregory sitting by the sleeping sentry and thumbing through a magazine.

Why didn’t you run away, Gregory? we asked, laughing at him, several days later.

And he answered, Where would I go in this freezing weather? I’m OK here.

So we started teasing him.

You’re dead right. The accommodation here is splendid…

It’s not bad here, he replied. The barracks where I used to be are like a sieve. The wind blows in from every side…

We asked him about his girl. He smiled.

Maria is a wonderful person, he told us. Before I met her she was engaged to a no-good fellow, a pig. He gave her up for another girl. Then nobody in the village wanted to marry Maria. I didn’t miss my chance. So what if she is second-hand. Nonsense, peasant ideas, my friend. She’s beautiful and good-hearted. What more could I want? And didn’t she load me with watermelons and cucumbers every time I passed by her vegetable garden? Well, one day I stole some cucumbers and melons and watermelons and I took them to her. ‘Maria’ I said, from now on I’m going to take care of you.’ She started crying and then me, too. But ever since that day she has given me lots of trouble, jealously. She wouldn’t let me go even to my mother’s. Until the day I was recruited, she wouldn’t let me go far from her apron strings. But that was just what I wanted…

He used to tell this story over and over, always with the same words, the same commonplace gestures. At the end he would have a good laugh and start gulping from his water jug.

His tongue was always wagging! When he started talking, nothing could stop him. We used to listen and nod our heads, not saying a word. But sometimes, as he was telling us about his mother and family problems, we couldn’t help wondering, Eh, well, these people have the same headaches in their country as we’ve got.

Strange, isn’t it?

Except for his talking too much, Gregory wasn’t a bad fellow. He was a marvelous cook. Once he made us some apple tarts, so delicious we licked the platter clean. And he could sew, too. He used to sew on all our buttons, patch our clothes, darn our socks, iron our ties, wash our clothes…

How the devil could you kill such a friend?

Even though his name was Gregory and some people on his side had killed scores of ours, even though we had left wives and children to go to war against him and his kind - but how