JOE

All funerals are sad, but non is sadder than a mother burying her son. My friend Lionel's body was already lying on the bier when I arrived at the chapel nestled in the shadow of the skyscrapers. A black limousine was standing outside the gate. Inside, a few friends, colleagues and Lionel's partner, Deborah, were waiting for the ceremony to begin. Lionel's ninety-four-year-old mother was sitting in the side pew near the coffin, upright and dry eyed, refusing to pay tribute to the gods with tears. Why should she? As soon as she noticed me, she motioned to sit beside her and asked whether the blue-tongue giant lizard, the goanna, that used to camp under our house, was still around - Lionel had often mentioned it. The organ began to play, and I opened the prayer book handed to me at the entrance by the funeral parlor’s hostess. On a slip of paper pasted into it, I came across the English text of the Te Deum: "You are God! You are the Lord!" I read and, as if Lionel had arranged it, the invocation brought back the memory like a faraway echo: a woman’s cry in the night in Crete where I was waiting for Lionel in the small southern coastal town of X, with the intention of together touring the romantic landscapes of the island. And, as if no longer in the chapel, turning a deaf ear to the pastor’s words at the end of the service, I remembered the past.

          The roadside Hotel Aida appeared on the screen of my memory. The owner, standing outside the gate, invited me to stay at his establishment - a Cubist structure on the site of a former farmhouse, built into the hillside - where the entrance was on the umpteenth level of the building. From here, steep stairs led up and down to the box-like rooms. Most of the the windows opened onto a narrow courtyard. Mine did too, but that didn’t bother me as I needed it only for a single night. Having agreed on the price, the owner informed me that there was no restaurant, but there was a bistro on the roof terrace where drinks and light meals were served in the evening.  

          Taking the stairs two at a time, I ran to the top of the building. A young couple was embracing, paying no attention to the breathtaking view. To the south, Libya’s brilliant sea, behind me the rugged peaks, as if titanic forces had tossed them high up in the air. Eagles circled above me. Standing in the sunlight with fishing boats rocking in the harbor and looking down into the town's main square with its whitewashed, onion-domed church, I no longer regretted that the mechanic could only fix my rental car by the following day. The road leading to the coast with its steep passes and unpaved sections was more suitable to mountain dwellers on donkeys than my old bomb.

          I rang Lionel from the post office: couldn’t he join me? Then we could start out on our tour, which we had planned in Sydney, from here. "I shall try to," he replied. When I hung up, I became aware of Hungarian voices. I wasn‘t surprised. The well-known characteristic of the Kádár era was that tour groups showed up abroad quite regularly, guidebook in hand with food from home in their cheap hotel rooms. I did not rush at them with the usual "you're Hungarian too?" exclamation, not least because I also caught sight of the two English girls, to whom I had given a lift. I had thought they would be good for balancing the shock absorbers-less car. They were waiting on the side of the road, like forest nymphs. They proved to be pleasant travel companions, and we discussed Greek oddities. The girls were making fun of Greek men, all of whom were convinced that they were irresistible and whether this might be related to the fact that they grew the nails on their little fingers long. Not to mention the Cretan moustache.

It turned out that the girls couldn’t find any student accommodation. I told them to go to the Aida and bargain. Anyway, the moustached hotelier had seemed to me like someone who believed that he was God’s gift to all blonde women. "Alright," they said, they would have a go.

          I wandered around the area, swam in the warm sea, had dinner and returned to the hotel. By then it was around ten o'clock, and the hotel rooms were filled with guests. Noises and sounds filtered through, mingling in the courtyard's vertical corridor: windows being opened, people talking, showers running, doors slamming, TV, dishes rattling, and out of this babel I seemed to make out some snatches of Hungarian. Perhaps the Hungarian group was staying here, I thought. Then gradually everything became quiet while the residents read, dreamed, made love, reminisced or perhaps tormented themselves with their problems, wrapped in the shroud of night.

Stretched out on my bed, I became aware of some noise. I stepped to the window and from behind the partly drawn curtain listened from where the susurrus was coming, which sounded increasingly like two people wrestling. They talked, whispering in a language that is formed by intimacy - myriads of unstructured words and tones, understood only by those who have created it.

If we are denied visual pleasures we can be voyeurs with our ears, but my tiredness proved stronger than my curiosity, and I went back to bed. Before I could even have opened the book in my hand, I fell into a slumber. I don't know how long I must have been asleep, when I suddenly awoke to a scream. Then - almost as an extension of the scream - a woman cried: "Te vagy az isten Jóska!" ("Oh, you are God, Joe!") Her cry cut into the still of the night.

At first I didn't know whether I was dreaming or awake. Suddenly a gust of wind blew from the sea, filling my room with the vapour of salt water and seaweed. The gust turned into a squall. Curtains flapped, windows slammed, and I locked mine. The world remained outside. I fancied that the woman's scream - like the rocket of a firework - was shooting toward the sky, sprinkling thousands of stars into the night. Lightning was followed by a huge thunder bolt; the storm broke out and the wild rain beat against the walls of the houses.

In the morning Lionel's slender figure appeared in the doorway. He had come by bus. We went to have breakfast across the street where almost every second door bore signs: "Frühstück" and "Breakfast" in an effort to attract the tourists. Over coffee I told Lionel about my nocturnal experience.

"He must be an awsome bloke, this Joe" commented Lionel drily. Maybe he thought I was teasing him. Or that I had only hallucinated in the stormy night - a notion which occured to me - as if my waking moment had conjured up the memory of an old text. I kept watching from the corner of my eye to see if any compatriots were coming to breakfast. None of them showed up, but the English girls did, joining us at our table. They scrutinized Lionel curiously. They had spent the night in the hotel, and asked me weather  I was leaving today – could they get a lift as they had to be in Heraklion by the next day. "Wasn't that a terrible storm last night?" - the one called Deborahasked. The other girl was Helen. I asked Lionel with exaggerated politeness whether he had any objections. Of course he hadn't, and was looking forward to their company.

          The car was ready, and the four of us duly set off. The girls soon made friends with Lionel. With his tall frame, red hair and rosy complexion he was a striking figure. He kept us amused with a talkativeness, inherited from Irish and Italian parents. My friend was a linguist and mimic artist, particularly good at imitating accents and bird calls. His skills also included gestures. Whether his subject was a person or an animal, he practically danced his role. As a bird, he would wiggle waggle, flapping his arms; you almost had the impression that he was floating in the air. And thus he was transformed into a Chinese, an Indian, a Texan cowboy and even a Hungarian when he imitated the latter speaking English.

          We decided that on our way we would stop off at Phaistos, the sister palace to that of Knossos. It is not far from Matala, the ancient port city, where Lionel had originally waited for me and where he had left his luggage. We would be staying there, and the girls could continue their journey by bus. After a while we ran out of words. We were captivated by the colourful carpet of the landscape with its olive trees, orange groves, vineyards and tomato gardens - fertile earth of the plains of Messara. Suddenly, as if continuing the remark that she had made at breakfast, Deborah spoke up: "What was that racket last night? The scream?" Had I heard it too?

"Yes," I nodded and glanced at Lionel: see, I hadn't dreamt it.

"And what did that woman shout, and in what language?" asked Helen, who so far had mostly remained silent. I glanced at Lionel again - while trying to keep my eyes on the road, indicating that he should translate it, based on what I had told him. The ruins of Phaistos were already emerging in the distance, but none of us were particularly interested. Without any ado, he uttered: "'Oh God, You are the Lord, Joe!' that's what the woman screamed in Hungarian." Lionel stopped, deliberating whether to add something, but decided against it. He waited for the impact. "Hmm…" Deborah kidded, "I wonder why she screamed? Perhaps..." but she couldn't continue, because by now all of us burst out laughing. Lionel was sitting beside me and the girls in the back. It felt as if an electric current had been turned on between us, connecting us to some large remote network.

 Helen commented on Joe's prowess similarly as Lionel had, while Deborah kept on weaving her thoughts in a more serious manner: "No wonder," she said, "after all, we are in Crete, where - so it seems - the gods walk around in hotel rooms at their pleasure. Or else they send their messengers to us from the woods. Oh, look out..!"

I stepped on the brakes, as a fourteen to fifteen-year-old boy came rushing down the hillside, swinging a bunch of grapes in his hand. He practically jumped in front of the car, offering his goods for a few drachmas. We pulled up and got out. Gathering our wits, we bought his entire stock and settled by the wayside to eat our purchase.  Just as he had showed up, the boy disappeared, - running to pick up his next load.

          "Actually," Lionel said, pursuing Deborah's train of thought, "the gods soon get bored with their Olympian residence and like to visit the earth from whence they came. They follow the example of their crafty leader, Zeus, whose earthly love affairs are too numerous to count. Legend has it that he was born here in Crete." By then Lionel was already consuming the second bottle of beer that we had bought on the way in a tavern. It was hot, and the girls were also drinking, but in moderation. I had moved into the shade, picking at the grapes. "But of course!" Lionel tapped his forehead, "Zeus,  Jove,  Joe: it was him, even the thunder proves that." The girls laughed, but only briefly. Somehow they didn't quite know whether Lionel's witticism had diluted or rather set in gold the night's magic, which they were filing away in the pigeonholes of their memories.

We laid pensively on the grass, Helen in the shade, next to me. She told me that she came to Crete to see the places where her father had fought against the Germans. He had been a communications officer who, with his comrades and some local guerrillas, went up to the mountains. They scaled the mountainside with bloodied hands, lugging their heavy radio equipment. They watched the enemy's movements from a cave behind the lines and reported everything to headquarters. Some women and girls crept up to them to supply them with food. "All the Cretans were heroes," Helen's father told her. "It's in their blood; they've always fought the invaders from ancient times to this day."

We listened to Helen in silence while our capriciously flittering thoughts drew their whimsical lines in the sky. We got back into the car and after some daring corners and steep climbs finally arrived at the ruins. By then Lionel was on his third bottle of beer, and his intoxication affected us as well. Walking up from the parking place to the hill, the palace was materializing in my imagination out of the fog. Its ruins dominated the heavenly valley sprawling at its feet as naturally as if the gods had placed it there. And indeed, it had been the residence of King Minos, the son of Zeus. In the distance Mount Ida's snow-capped peak was visible. Who knows, maybe Lionel wasn't that far from the truth?

Arriving at the ruins, wide, shallow steps led to a platform that might have been a throne room or part of a theatre. I felt like prostrating myself in awe at being able to stumble in the footsteps of the divine offsprings, while Lionel strode up there like an actor onto a stage. He looked around and cried out joyfully. His cry at once turned into a blaring-shrieking bird call like that of the kookaburra's laughter. Apart from our foursome, there would have been about half a dozen tourists there and the guard. They all turned toward Lionel, wondering what that man was doing? They couldn't have known, as they would never have heard anything like this.

The girls too were amazed and, their faces flushed, surrounded Lionel, who stood there like a messenger with an extremely important message. Red hair fluttering in the wind he filled his lungs, puffing out his chest, then once again began his squawk. This one was a much longer tune: hooting, gurgling shrieks merging into a laughing fit that soared into the air and then eased, dipping into the deep, only to resume the raucous cacophony. The guard, who had once worked as a doorman in Melbourne, excitedly explained to the tourists that the cry of the kookaburra forecast rain. He pointed to the sky, where some darkish wisps of cloud were indeed gathering. When Lionel broke off, a reply pierced the sudden silence: a shy young rooster's cock-a-doodle-doo signalling its puzzled curiosity: "What kind of bird is that up on the hill?" And Lionel just kept on embellishing the Australian kingfisher's ominous laughter.

By now he was followed by a diverse choir; the valley resounded with the quacking of ducks, braying of donkeys, the mocking laughter of children. All the while we encouraged and taunted Lionel, who stood there, craning his neck, his head reaching for the clouds. Lightning flashed in the distance. Fat drops of water splashed on our faces and the stones; the rain came down. We fled to a nearby tavern together with the guard. Thick red wine appeared on the table, followed by some food, and no one thought anymore about the girls reaching the bus in Matala.

*******************

I woke up with a jolt just as the ceremony was over. Four men lifted the coffin and took it to the exit. By the time I got there, Lionel's mother and Deborah were already sitting in the car following the limousine, waiting to start the drive to the cemetery. The black-suited ones were still putting some wreaths and bouquets in the hearse. Before they closed the door, I walked over and took a carnation from one of them. I then knocked on the window behind which Deborah was sitting. She opened it and I handed her the flower. She did not speak for a moment, then glanced at me:

"Wasn't it beautiful," she asked, "there in Crete?" And a tear welled up in her eyes.

"Yes," I replied, "it was beautiful."

"Like a dream."

*******************

Chatswood NSW Australia 2002

Translated by Anne Major

Edited by Karen Barnes