Captain Corelli's mandolin (42 page)

`A scar can be romantic,' said Pelagia.

`These scars,' said the doctor, indicating the chest with his scalpel, `will be pretty horrible. If he lives.'

Velisarios buried Carlo Guercio's remains that night in the yard of the doctor's house. Struggling across the walls and fields, accompanied by that sticky smell of death, his hands slimy and slipping, he had felt like Atlas burdened by the world. It had not taken him long to discover that his load was too heavy to carry in his arms as he had carried the captain, and finally he staggered along with that great weight across his shoulders, as though it were a mighty sack of wheat.

In the darkness he bound up Carlo's shattered jaw with a strip of sheet, and then he hacked downwards, chopping through the olive's roots, unearthing ancient layers of stones and fires, tossing out shards of pottery and the ancient shoulder-blades of sheep. He did not know it, but he buried Carlo in the soil of Odysseus' time, as though he had belonged there from the first.

Just before dawn, when the surgery on the captain was complete at last, and father and daughter were both unutterably exhausted, they came out to say farewell to that heroic flesh.

Pelagia combed the hair and kissed the forehead, and the doctor, naturally a pagan and always moved by ancient ways, placed a silver coin over each eye and a flask of wine in the grave. Velisarios stood below and brought the body down. He straightened up, and a thought occurred to him. From his pocket he took a crushed pack of cigarettes, removed one, straightened it out, and placed it in the dead man's lips. 'I owed him one,' he said, and clambered out.

The doctor made an oration, with Pelagia beside him weeping and Velisarios kneading his hat in his hands.

'Our friend,' he said, 'who arrived as an enemy, has passed over the meadows of asphodel. We found him fuller of the knowledge of goodness than any other mortal man. We remember that his many decorations were for saving lives, not for destroying them. We remember that he died as nobly as he lived, valiant and strong. We are creatures of a day, but his spirit will not dim. He made an eager grace of life and was arrested in mid-path by blood-boltered men whose name will live in infamy down the passage of the years. These also will pass away, but unlamented and unforgiven; the meed of death is common to us all. When death comes to these men they shall become spirits drifting useless in the dark, for man's day is very short before the end, and the cruel man, whose ways are cruel, lies accursed and is a by-word after death. But the spirit of Carlo Guercio shall live in the light as long as we have tongues to speak of him and tales to tell our friends.

'It is said that of all things that creep and breathe upon her, the earth breeds no feebler thing than man. It is true that Carlo was made by misfortune to roll around the world, but in him we found no feebleness. In him there was no rude arrogance, he was no nefarious ruffian to misuse another's home. In him we found combined the softness of a maiden and the massive strength of rock, the perfect figure of the perfect man. He was one who could have said, "I am a citizen, not of Athens or of Rome, but of the world." he was a man of whom we would say, "Nothing can harm a good man, either in life or after death."

'Remember these sayings that have come down to us from old: "Whom the gods love, die young."

"Man is a dream of a shadow.'

"Even the gods cannot change the past."

"Men in their generations are like the leaves of the trees. The wind blows and one year's leaves are scattered to the ground; but the trees burst into bud and put on fresh ones when the springtime comes."

'I remember also that the poet tells us that surely there is a time for long-speaking and a time for sleep. Sleep long and well. You will not be curbed by age, you will not grow weak, you will not know sorrows nor infirmity. As long as we remember you, you will be remembered fair and young. Cephallonia has no greater honour than to count itself the guardian of your bones.'

Leaning upon each other, the doctor and his daughter returned inside, listening to Velisarios, the stony scrape of the shovel, the patter of falling earth. Carefully they carried Corelli to Pelagia's bed, and outside the first birds sang.

It was only a short time before the Germans had consolidated their positions and begun to take an interest in loot. Not only did the doctor have to hide his valuables, which was the common lot and nothing to be wondered at, but he found himself embarrassed by an Italian officer immobile in his daughter's bed. Pelagia made up bedding for him at the bottom of the cachette beneath the floor of the kitchen, and once more Velisarios was called in to carry him, neither the doctor nor Pelagia having the strength to move him without injury. There he was reunited with his mandolin, and Carlo's papers were temporarily removed. In the interests of Corelli's health the lid of the hiding-place was left open unless troops were in the vicinity, propped up by a piece of broomstick that could be quickly kicked away before the mat was replaced and the table realigned. Thus there was to come a time when he and Pelagia huddled helplessly in the darkness of the hole as the family's glasses and plates were stolen and the doctor was assaulted and abused.

Pelagia was to remember the time of Corelli's recovery and his escape not as a period of memorable and intoxicating adventure, nor even as an interlude of fear and hope, but as the slow beginning of her sorrows.

The war had in any case reduced her. Her skin was translucent from lack of food, stretched tightly over bones that lent her an emaciated and soulful look that would not biome fashionable for another twenty-five years. Her shapely breasts had withered a little and fallen, becoming practical pouches rather than things of beauty or objects of desire. Sometimes her gums bled, and when she ate she chewed carefully, lest she lose a tooth. Her rich black hair had thinned and lost its resilience, and amongst it could be seen the first grey hairs that should not have appeared for at least another decade. The doctor, who on account of his greater age had suffered less, checked her over frequently, and knew that since the occupation she had lost fifty percent of her body's fat. By analysis of the nitrogen in her urine he determined that she also was steadily losing muscle as she used the protein up, and she was finding it difficult to sustain any energetic activity for more than a few minutes. He determined nonetheless that she was still sound in heart and lung, and when he could he gave her more than her share of milk and fish, when these could be obtained, by affecting a lack of appetite. She in turn gave her own food to Corelli by a similar affection that deceived no one.

It churned the doctor's heart to see her so faded, and he was reminded of those tattered roses that manage to survive the autumn and cling to their residual beauty until December, as if sustained by a certain dispensation of a fate that was nostalgic for the past but intent upon destruction at the last. Now that there was no shamefaced Italian officer to steal them rations, and no fat quartermaster to inveigle, the doctor was reduced to trapping lizards and snakes, but was as yet disinclined to experiment with cats and rats. Things were not as bad as in Holland, where cats were served as `roof rabbit', nor nearly as severe as on the mainland. There was always the sea, the source of Cephallonia's being, but also the source of all its turbid past and the strategic significance which was now a curious memory, the same sea that in future times would cause new invasions of Italians and Germans who would lie roasting on the sands together and leaving films of moisturising oil upon the water, tourists puzzled by the empty and surmising gaze of elderly Greeks in black who passed without acknowledgement or a word.

As soon as Corelli could walk, he went in the company of the donor and Velisarios to Casa Nostra at the dead of night, whilst Pelagia remained at home, hiding in the cachette to which had been restored the mandolin, the doctor's History, and Carlo's papers. As long as the rapists were on the island she barely left the house, and in that hole beneath the floor she revolved her memories, crocheted and unpicked her blanket, and thought about Antonio. He had given her his ring, too big for any of her fingers, and she turned it in the lamplight, looking at the demi-falcon rising, with an olive branch in its mouth, and underneath the words 'Semper fidelis'. She feared in her heart that back home he would dismiss her, that the words would apply to her only, that she would be left forever, faithful and forgotten, waiting like Penelope for a man who never came.

But Antonio said otherwise. He came frequently, after dark, complaining that their hideaway was cold and draughty, and relating hair raising stories of evasion and near capture, only some of which were true. His new beard scratched her cheeks as they lay face to face and fully clothed upon her bed, wrapped in each other's embrace and talking of the future and the past.

'I will always hate the Germans,' she said.

'Gunter saved my life.'

'He slaughtered all your friends.'

'He had no choice. It wouldn't surprise me if he shot himself afterwards. He was trying not to cry.'

'There is always a choice. Whatever the body gets up to, it's the mind's fault. That's what we say.'

'He wasn't brave like Carlo. Carlo would have refused to shoot us, but Gunter was a different kind of man.'

'Would you have refused?'

'I hope so, but I can't say. Perhaps I would have taken the easy way. I am only a man, but Carlo was like one of those heroes in our old stories, like Horatius Cocles, or whoever it was who held the bridge of Porsenna against a whole army. Only one in a million is made like that, you mustn't blame poor Gunter.'

'Still, I'll always hate the Germans.'

'A lot of the Germans aren't Germans.'

'What? Don't be silly.'

'You can't tell by the uniforms, you know. They recruited in Poland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania. You name it. You don't know it, but on the mainland they've got Greeks they call "Security Battalions".'

'It's not true.'

'It is. I am sorry, but it is. Every nation has its share of shits. All those thugs and nonentities who want to feel superior. Exactly the same thing happened in Italy, they all joined the Fascists to see what they could get. All sons of clerks and peasants who wanted to be something. All ambition and no ideals. Don't you see the appeal of an army? If you want a girl, rape her. If you want a watch, take it. If you're in a sour mood, kill someone. You feel better, you feel strong. It feels good to belong to the chosen people, you can do what you want, and you can justify anything by saying it's a law of nature or the will of God.'

'We have a proverb: "Give courage to a peasant and he'll jump in your bed."

'I like that other one you told me.'

'"Bean by bean the sack fills? What's that got to do with it?'

'No, no, no. "If you sleep with babies you'll be pissed on."

I've been pissed on, koritsimou, and I wish I'd never joined the Army. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but look what's happened.'

'Antonia's lost her strings and you're all wired up. Do you miss the boys? I do.'

'Koritsimou, I loved those boys, they were my children. How is Lemoni? When we have a daughter we'll call her Lemoni. After the war.'

'If we have two sons, the second one must be Carlo. His name should live, we should be reminded every day.'

'Every minute.'

'Carino, do you believe in God and heaven, and all of that?'

'No. Not after this, it doesn't make any sense. If you were God, would you allow all this?'

'I asked because I want Carlo and the boys to be in paradise. I can't help it, so perhaps I do believe.'

'Tell God when you see him that I want to punch him in the nose.'

'Kiss me, it's nearly dawn.'

'I must go. Tomorrow I'll bring you a rabbit. I've found a burrow, and if I lie above it I can grab one as it comes out. And I'll find us some more snails.'

'Psipsina catches rabbits, but she won't let us have them. She growls and runs away.'

'If it was spring I could look for eggs.'

'Hug me.'

'Santa Maria, my ribs.'

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting.'

'I wish I could. Merda. Nonetheless, I love you.'

'Forever?'

'In Sicily they say that eternal love lasts for two years. Fortunately, I am not Sicilian.'

'Greek men love themselves and their mothers forever. Their wives they love for six months. Fortunately I am a woman.'

'Fortunately.'

'You will come back? After the war?'

'I will leave Antonia as a hostage. That way you will know you can trust me.'

'You could get another.'

'She is irreplaceable.'

'Aren't I irreplaceable?'

'Why don't you trust me? Why do you look at me like that? Don't cry. How could I pass by the opportunity to have such a good father-in-law?'

'Bastard.'

'Ow. My ribs.'

'O, carino, I am so sorry.'

'I've got to go. Tomorrow night. Kiss me. I love you.'

Out into the night he would go, creeping from hedge to wall, jumping at the slightest sound, and dawn would find him dreaming beneath his blankets, the clouds of calcium beneath his flesh forming gradually into bone, the memory of tenderness populating his reverie with images of Pelagia and his operatic boys. In the early afternoon he would wake and search for berries, perforce, exercises to keep his fingers nimble, and scrabble in the undergrowth for snails. Not only did the doctor make him eat the things, but he had to grind the shells in a mortar and pestle, and the whole family would drink the gritty pieces down in wine, for it was Dr Iannis' intention that no one should be without a splendid skeleton, however thin and tired; it was no worse than the ancient stores of desiccated beans that kept the belly full but gave a man the gripes.

Pelagia was torn. She wanted to keep her captain on the island, but knew that she would kill him if she did. There were people who for bread would brook any betrayal, and it could only be a matter of time before the Nazis became aware of his furtive presence in their lives. Furthermore the weather was turning foul, the roof of Casa Nostra leaked, and the captain had no warmth against the slashing wind or the vindictive cold. There was less and less to eat for her father and herself, and sometimes she found herself looking longingly at spiders on the walls. She told Kokolios and Stamatis to look out for the madman who used to go round with Arsenios, and to tell him to call on her if he could.

For sometime now Bunny Warren had been following the British policy, implemented by means of gold sovereigns, of encouraging the owners of boats to deny their use to the Germans, and there were not a few surviving Italian soldiers who had found themselves bound at night for Siracusa, Bianco, or Valletta, in vessels which seemed to be made of matchsticks but in which their owners expressed the most incorrigible and optimistic faith. From trough to crest they bounced their nomadic way past E-boats and searchlights, battleships and mines, their sailors singing lustily and their passengers wide-eyed, frozen, and tormented by nausea, eventually to arrive upon dry land and discover that its stillness made them sick.

Therefore it was all in a day's work for Warren to arrange the captain's departure. He called at Pelagia's house at three in the morning, tapping softly on the window outside her own room, and when she had disentangled herself from Corelli's embrace, she opened the shutters and saw the man whose help she had both sought and dreaded. 'What ho,' he said, as he came in through the door, adding, 'Kalimera, Kyria Pelagia.'

Very formally he shook her hand and made a comment about the weather.

Bunny Warren's Greek was now colourful and colloquial, but he still spoke with a perfectly upper-class English accent, managing to turn the Greek for 'Let's go' into 'In taxi', which suited his English ears, made sense to him, and was also comprehensible to Greeks. Since his normal range of adjectives and adverbs was untranslatable, he still punctuated his speech with English words such as 'spiffing' and 'simply ripping' and 'absolutely ghastly', whose effect was disorientating and redundant rather than nonsensical.

'Who is this?' asked Corelli, who for a moment had been fearing a visit from the Germans.

'Bunnio',' said Pelagia, without answering his question, `this is an Italian soldier, and we have to get him out.'

Warren smiled and extended his hand. 'Ave,' he said, not having had as much opportunity to modernise his Italian as he had his Greek. Corelli felt that his hand had been almost crushed, and he was left with an exaggerated impression of the general strength of the British. He did not know that in England an attempt to break another's fingers signifies both virility and bonhomie. He was also stupefied by the man's lankiness and height, and disturbingly reminded of a German by the blue and very nordic eyes.

It turned out that a caique was leaving for Sicily the following night, weather permitting, and that it would be perfectly easy to put the captain on board, `Though we might have to kill one or two of those rotten bounders.'

It was simply a case of going to the bay at one o'clock in the morning with a shielded lamp, and flashing it out to sea in answer to the signals from the boat. Warren promised to be there, assuring them that everything would go swimmingly and end up top-hole and ticketyboo.