Captain Corelli's mandolin (7 page)

On his way to the kapheneion Dr Iannis encountered Lemoni, who was engaged in prodding the nose of a rangy brindled dog with a stick. The animal was leaping about in a frenzy of barking, and was attempting to snap at the piece of wood, its cloudy intellect darkened further by a question whose solution seemed to lie in a decision to bark ever more wildly; was this a game or ,a genuine provocation? He sat back on his haunches, threw back his head, and howled like a wolf.

`He's singing, he's singing,' cried Lemoni gleefully, and joined in; `A-ee-ra, a-ee-ra, a-ee-ra.'

The doctor put his fingers into his ears and protested, `Koritsimou, stop, stop at once, the day is already too hot, and this noise is making me sweat. And don't do that to the dog, or it will bite you.'

`No, it won't, it only bites sticks.'

The doctor reached out to pat the animal on the head, and remembered that he had once sewn up a gash in one of its pads. He winced as he recalled extracting some pieces of broken glass. He knew that everyone thought that he was odd on account of his compulsion to heal, and indeed he himself also believed it peculiar, but he also knew that every man needs an obsession in order to enjoy life, and it was so much the better if that obsession was constructive. Look at Hitler and Metaxas and Mussolini, those megalomaniacs. Look at Kokolios, preoccupied with the redistribution of other people's wealth, or Father Arsenios, a slave to appetite, or Mandras, so much in love with his daughter that he even swung about in the olive tree, imitating an ape for Pelagia's pleasure. He shuddered as he remembered a chained monkey he had seen in a tree in Spain; it had been masturbating and eating the results. O God, just imagine Mandras doing that.

`You shouldn't pat it,' said Lemoni, glad of an opportunity to break his reverie and show off her wisdom to an adult, `it's got fleas.'

He removed his hand quickly and the dog placed itself behind him in order to avoid the little girl with the stick. `Have you decided on a name for the pine marten?' he asked.

`Psipsina,' she announced. `It's called Psipsina.'

`You can't call it that, it isn't a cat.'

`Well, I'm not a lemon, and I'm called Lemoni.'

`I was there when you were born,' the doctor told her, `and we didn't know whether you were a baby or a lemon, and I nearly took you into the kitchen and squeezed all the juice out.'

Lemoni's face contorted sceptically and the dog quite suddenly shot between the doctor's legs, took the stick from her hand, and ran off with it to a heap of rubble where he proceeded to tear it to severs. `Clever dog,' commented the doctor, and left the little girl staring with astonishment at her empty hands.

When he entered the kapheneion he saw that it was full of the usual mangas: Kokolios with his splendidly exuberant and masculine moustache; Stamatis, evading the reproachful glares and the nagging tongue of his wife; Father Arsenios, spherical and perspiring. The doctor collected his tiny cup of grainy coffee and his tumbler of water, and sat next to Kokolios as he always did. He took a deep draught of the water, and quoted Pindar, also as he always did: `Water is best.'

Kokolios took a deep suck on the nargiles, blew out a cloud of blue smoke, and asked, `You've been a sailor, Iatre , have you not? Is it true that Greek water tastes more like water than that of any other country?'

`Undoubtedly. And Cephallonian water tastes even more like water than any other in Greece. We also have the best wine and the best light and the best sailors.'

`When the revolution comes we'll have the best life as well,' announced Kokolios with the intention of provoking the assembly. He pointed to the portrait of King George on the wall, adding, `And that fool's mugshot will be replaced by that of Lenin.'

`Scoundrel,' said Stamatis, under his breath. The deposal of the pea from his ear had exposed him not only to the irritations of marriage, but to Kokolios' shockingly unpatriotic anti-monarchism. Stamatis slapped his palm with the back of his hand to indicate the degree of Kokolios' stupidity, and added, `Putanas yie.'

Kokolios smiled dangerously and said, `Son of a whore, am I? Well, you can just drink my fart.'

`Ai gamisou. Theh gamiesei.'

The doctor bridled at these insults and these invitations to fuck off, and he slapped his glass down on the table. `Paidia, paidia, this is enough. We have this unpleasantness every morning. I have always been a Venizelist; I am not a monarchist, and I am not a Communist. I disagree with both of you, but I cure Stamatis' deafness and I burn out Kokolios' warts. This is how we should be. We should care for each other more than we care for ideas, or else we will end up killing each other. Am I not right?'

`You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs,' quoted Kokolios, looking at Stamatis significantly.

`I don't like your omelette,' said Stamatis. `It's made with bad eggs, it tastes foul, and it makes me shit.'

`The revolution will plug your backside,' said Kokolios, adding, `a fair share of what little we have, the means of production in the hands of the producers, the equal obligation of all to work.'

`You don't work any more than you have to,' commented Father Arsenios in his slow bass voice.

`You don't work at all, Patir. You grow fatter every day.

Everything is given to you for nothing. You are a parasite.'

Arsenios wiped his plump hands on his black robes, and the doctor said, `There is such a thing as an indispensable parasite. There are parasitic bacteria in the gut that aid digestion. I am not a religious man, I am a materialist, but even I can see that priests are a kind of bacteria that enable people to find life digestible. Father Arsenios has done many useful things for those who seek consolation; he is a member of every family, and he is the family for those who don't have one.'

`Thank you, Iatre,' said the priest. `I never thought I would hear such praise from such a notoriously godless man. I have never seen you in church.'

`Empedocles said that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. If that is true, then I don't need to go to church. And I don't need to believe the same things as you to see that you have a purpose. Now let's smoke and drink our coffee in peace. If we can't stop arguing in here, then I am going to start having breakfast at home.'

`The doctor is thinking of becoming a heretic indeed, though I agree with him that our priest is a great comforter of widows,' said Kokolios, grinning. `I couldn't have some of your tobacco, could I? I am running out.'

`Kokolio', since you maintain that all property is theft, it follows that you should give us all a fair share of what little you have. Pass over your tin and I shall finish it for you. Fair's fair. Be a good Communist. Or is it only other people who have to share their property in utopia?'

`When the revolution comes, Iatre, there will be a sufficiency for everyone. In the meantime, pass me your pouch, and I shall return the favour another time.'

The doctor passed over his tobacco and Kokolios stuffed his nargiles contentedly. `What's the news of the war?'

The doctor twisted the ends of his moustache and said, `Germany is taking everything, the Italians are playing the fool, the French have run away, the Belgians have been overrun whilst they were looking the other way, the Poles have been charging tanks with cavalry, the Americans have been playing baseball, the British have been drinking tea and adjusting their monocles, the Russians have been sitting on their hands except when voting unanimously to do whatever they are told. Thank God we are out of it. Why don't we turn on the radio?'

The large British radio in the corner of the kapheneion was switched on, its valves began to glow through the brass mesh, its whistles, crackles and hisses were reduced to a minimum by the judicious twiddling of knobs and the careful turning back and forth of the set, and the company settled down to listen to the broadcast from Athens. They were fully expecting to hear about the latest parade of the National Youth Organisation before Prime Minister Metaxas; there might be something about the King, and perhaps something about the most recent Nazi conquest.

There was an item about Churchill's new alliance with the Free French, another about a revolt in Albania against Italian occupation, another about the annexation of Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine, and at that point Pelagia appeared at the door of the kapheneion, beckoning urgently to her father, and embarrassed by the knowledge that the presence of a female anywhere near to such a place was a worse sacrilege than spitting on the tomb of a saint.

Dr Iannis stuffed his pipe into his pocket, sighed, and went reluctantly to the door. `What is it, kori, what is it?'

`It's Mandras, Papakis. He's fallen out of the olive tree and he fell on a pot, and he's got some shards of it . . . you know . . . in his seat.'

`In his backside? What was he doing up the tree? Showing off again? Monkey impressions? The boy's a lunatic: Pelagia was both disappointed and strangely relieved when her father forbade her to enter the kitchen whilst he extracted crumbs and morsels of terracotta from the smooth and muscular backside of her suitor. She stood outside, her back to the door, and shuddered in sympathy every time that Mandras yelled. Inside, the doctor had the fisherman lying face down on the table with his trousers about his knees, and was reflecting on the general idiocy of love. How could Pelagia fall for a whippersnapper as accident-prone, charming, and unformed as this? He remembered the things he had done to show off to his own wife before they were affiancéd: he had climbed onto her roof, lifted a tile, and told her every Turkish joke he knew; he had pinned `anonymous' verses to the jamb of her door at night, detailing her loveliness; just like Mandras, he had made exceptional efforts to court her father. `You're an idiot,' he told the patient.

`I know,' said Mandras, wincing as another shard came out.

`First of all you get shot accidentally, and now you fall out of a tree., 'I saw a Tarzan film when I was in Athens,' explained Mandras, `and I was just giving Pelagia an idea of what it was about. Ow. With respect, Iatre, be careful.'

`Wounded in the cause of culture, eh? Young fool.'

`Yes, Iatre.'

`Stop being so polite. I know what you're up to. Are you going to ask her to marry you, or not? I warn you, I'm not giving away a dowry.'