The Golden Step (7 page)

Before sunrise next morning I was sitting on a block of stone, greasing my boots for the day's march and listening to a bird in a bush singing
Siga-siga-siga!
Slow down … slow down … slow down … Here at Vasiliki, idling by the Minoan house among pink spears of Cretan ebony, the temptation to laze away the morning was strong. Half buried in the ground behind me was a tight nest of deep rooms with walls two feet thick, small enough to cross in a couple of strides, interconnected by low arched doorways. Some of these basement rooms still showed patches of the pale red plaster that the house-builder smoothed across their walls more than 4,000 years ago. Other dwellings and lesser buildings lay spread across the hillside round about. When the site was excavated at the turn of the 20th century, among the ruins were found some of the finest examples of the potter's art ever unearthed in Crete. This ‘Vasiliki ware', at its most striking in the form of tall jugs with spouts pointing upwards like the beaks of startled birds, had been semi-fired to produce mottled swirls of iridescent colour in red, black, brown and orange – a marvellous stroke of artistic achievement by its early Bronze Age creators.

The Red House must have been a luxury residence in its day, the country villa of some grandee of the early Minoan period before any of the great palaces were built. Whoever the owner of the Red House may have been, he commanded a wonderful view east across the valley to the great dark split of the Monastiraki Gorge, north to the sea in the Gulf of Mirambello. But his house came crashing down in flames around 2,200
BC
, and lay hidden out of sight and out of mind while kingdoms rose and fell, invaders came and went, and cultures flourished and crumbled in the island over the next 4,000 years.

I sat on until the cocks of Vasiliki had crowed the sun up over the rim of Thripti, then walked up through the village where mules were being unloaded in front of the taverna, through the olive groves and on along the red dirt road into the hills. E4 signs led me into a wide upland of rocks and spiny cushions of
astivitha
. In a silent valley where pale mudslides held ranks of young olive trees, a tiny church and a solitary mitato marked the still deserted summer village of Asari. Here, reaching out to poke a shard of pottery from between two stones, I discovered that my figwood walking stick was not in my right hand. Tomorrow night, with any luck, I would be walking into Kritsa, the village where I had been given the white katsouna several years before. How could I do that without a twirl of my talismanic stick? Not for the last time on this expedition, I retraced my steps to look for the katsouna, and found it hanging on an E4 sign where I had stopped for a drink of water.

As if sulky at being baulked of its prize, E4 began to give trouble once more. High in the hills the dirt road divided into three. No signs. I was getting a bit braver now, and spun a coin with a pleasurable feeling of fatalism. Left came up heads, right tails. The middle way ascended to a broad plain of pale baked mud from which four more tracks diverged unsigned. What now? Angry barking came from a farmyard below. An old dame hobbled out to see what the fuss was about. Here was my chance. ‘Pare ta skilia!' I shouted. ‘Kala, kala, they're good,' piped back the woman, beckoning me down to the gate with one hand while she whacked the dogs into submission with the other. What about the path? ‘Epano!' she said, pointing up the trackless hillside. Up there, boy – get on with it, don't be a nancy! Her son emerged from the house. What's the trouble, mum? Oh, the path to Meseleri? He drew a map for me in the dirt. The track splits down there, see? Then again. Take the left one, then go left again, be sure to go left, OK? Then right. Then it's just follow your nose, OK? You'll be there in an hour at the most.

An hour later, descending a lonely valley into which I'm sure the farmer never dreamed I would blunder, I admitted to myself that I was thoroughly lost. E4, if it even existed in these parts, was pursuing its baffling course somewhere over the hills and far away. There were two choices: burst into tears and wait for the robins to come and cover me with leaves, or keep on down this track and trust to luck. It led me to the Monastery of the Panagia Vryomeni, deserted and peaceful among the pine trees. The faded frescoes in the church showed a Nativity, a Presentation in the Temple, a Crucifixion, and over the north window a depiction of Jesus being laid very tenderly in the tomb by sorrowing friends.

A pause, a prayer and a sip of water in this sunny, silent place were as good as a dose of Dexedrine. I subsided onto the bench outside and had a good look at the map. E4 ran on from Meseleri to the next village, Prina, and then took a great 20-mile swing across the heights of Dhikti before dropping towards the high oasis of the Lasithi Plain. That was, technically speaking, the way to go. But I had spotted something else – a big blob of settlement a little north of Prina, labelled ‘Kritsa'. I had friends in Kritsa, the Aphordakos family whom Charis Kakoulakis had urged me to look up. I hadn't been there for years, but every previous visit had been a pure delight. What was more, a thread of dirt road seemed to connect Prina to Kritsa, and to run on towards the northern flanks of Dhikti. From there it looked as if a dodgy footpath might be my lot until I should rejoin the main route on the Lasithi Plain, but whatever its state it couldn't be more unreliable or misleading than European Hiking Route E4. Could it?

I sat pondering. Jane's words murmured in my inner ear: ‘You're not writing a guidebook. You don't have to stick to a plan. Follow your nose and enjoy it, why don't you?' All right, then.

Below the monastery I found a wire fence across the track, bound up with a pair of ancient pyjama bottoms. Trespass time. I clambered through, tearing my trousers, and went down on sore feet through the olive groves and on into Meseleri. Stop here for the night? I consulted my shoulders, smarting from the pack straps, and my feet, bruised by the constant jabbing of stones on the track. Still a few miles in the tank, they told me. I followed a brand-new tarmac road, shiny black, that had just been slashed through the hills, and came to the village of Prina and the Taverna o Pitopoulis. No, there are no rent rooms anywhere near, said Dimitri the owner. My spirits sank. His wife Katerina took a look at me. Of course you could sleep here, if you don't mind dossing on the floor. Mind? I could have kissed her. Outside, where the cool wind could blow away the reek, I dumped my pack and took off my boots with a sigh of relief.

Dimitri worked his olive groves and vineyard, it turned out, while Katerina ran the taverna. They had three children, and little money to spare. A few coaches brought parties of foreigners to the Taverna o Pitopoulis, but Prina remained out of the rich jetstream of tourism. Maybe the new road would make a difference. Prina, they said, was a typical Cretan hill village with an ageing population, pleasant to live in, but steadily losing its youngsters to the lure of seasonal tourist work in the nearby coast towns of Ierapetra and Agios Nikolaos, or to the college courses, brighter lights and better long-term job prospects in Iraklion or Athens. Recently there had been a few economic problems in Crete connected with immigration by Bulgarian and Albanian economic refugees. Their son had asked about several jobs in Ierapetra after leaving school, but all the positions had already been filled by Albanians. Bulgarians were hardworking types, keen to fit in socially – but the Albanians, well … Still, one hoped for better days, didn't one? Make the best of what you've got, that's the trick, no?

It turned into a great night. There was no bar TV, and therefore no talk of war in Kosovo. A German couple pitched up after dark in search of a meal. Can you show us some vegetarian options? ‘Ochi! No!' expostulated Dimitri. A meal without meat – what is that? Nevertheless, rumbling like a subsiding volcano, he produced a gigantic salad. Then the raki bottle was planked down on the table. Out came Dimitri's
laouto
, a beautiful old deep-bellied instrument with a fretboard inlaid with mother-of-pearl. We all had a go, and I discovered that the four pairs of strings were tuned like those of a mandola, an instrument I had hacked around on for years. Better still, a G key harmonica was one of the items I had retained during the Great Backpack Purge at Kato Zakros, some 70 miles back along the way. We made the dogs of Prina howl – something they scarcely needed encouragement to do. Dimitri abandoned the laouto to his guests and went out for his lyra. His stubby worker's fingers, one of them bent from an ancient dislocation, flew along the lyra's neck as he cradled it on his knee, the three strings keening against his fingernails, the short bow sawing back and forth in his other hand. My Greek was still far too embryonic to allow appreciation of the single-verse mantinades he sang. One featured a
monopati
, a footpath, and also a
dromos
, a road, and from Dimitri's winks and nods in my direction I took this to be a compliment to the sore-footed stranger within the gates.

‘For the oppression of the poor,' said the Psalmist, when I sat on a rock just outside Kritsa to consult him the following afternoon, ‘for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.' An enjoyable image to take with me, as I gave the katsouna a good stout swing and limped down the hill into Kritsa.

Upcountry Village:
Kritsa Interlude

Although I arrived yesterday my feet still ache, and I have carried out a damage inspection of them. Left foot: bruise under little toenail (now blue); abrasion above Achilles tendon; blisters on inside front heel, on ball of foot behind second toe, on outside of big toe. Right foot: bigger Achilles abrasion (strip of Compeed plastic skin on this); four separate rub-marks round ankle; blisters on ball of fourth toe, on tip of third toe. Both feet rather shiny and red. Soles: yellow carapace forming, goat-scented, rubbery to the touch.

I open my paperback book of psalms to see if the Psalmist is in tune with my mood of lazy contentment. He is not. In fact his poem for today is an absolute torrent of self-abasement. ‘I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head …' He finds himself beset round by strong bulls of Bashan, ravening like lions with gaping mouths. ‘I am poured out like water,' cries the wretched man, ‘and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.'

There have been mornings when I have felt like that, too, but not this one. I turn away from the worm in the dust and luxuriate in the smugness of sloth.

What a pleasure it is to have a shower that's warm and all-over, to wash all my clothes properly instead of dunking them in a cold sink, to sleep in a clean, sweet-smelling room. Why have I never properly appreciated this sort of thing before? What a delicious, guilty pleasure it is to have nothing whatsoever to do. Oughtn't I to be at my desk, at my computer, at my worrying and scurrying? I can't remember the last time I allowed myself just to waste a day. And here I am, doing it. Better not even look at what that stern moralist the Psalmist has to say about the idle. He is bound to threatening me with being broken like a potter's sherd, or cast out in the dirt. I kick back, stretch and luxuriate in wicked idleness. There's plenty of lazing still to be done before I saunter into town this evening and check out who's around. There are friends I've been looking forward to seeing, first and foremost George Aphordakos.

I'd come to Kritsa five or six years before, at the instigation of Charis Kakoulakis. ‘Big village, Christopher – friendly people,' Charis had said, ‘and one very special man, George Aphordakos, a policeman, a runner of the hills. George will show you all places of the mountains. He is
aegagros
, a wild goat of Crete.'

Mountaineers are the epitome of the masculine hero in Crete, and they come in two dimensions. There is the traditional
palikare
or strongman champion with a great black beard, his chunky figure encased in tight black shirt, capacious breeches and long leather boots. You can see him in any village on fly posters advertising itinerant musicians. Such men love to present themselves in this image, slung about with bandoliers, one fist enveloping a lyra, the other doubled on their hip, a
sariki
or fringed headband twisted about their fiercely-knitted brows, gazing heroically towards a mountainous horizon. In contrast stands the lightly-made, athletic aegagros or mountain goat type, all sinews and hollows. He might not be able to fell a bear with a blow, but he can leap tirelessly from crag to pinnacle where your palikare would struggle and sweat to follow.