Back of Beyond Page 25

  “They won’t buy my fish. The taverna owners here do not like skate.”

  These mini manta rays must be the most difficult of creatures to clean, with their leathery hide, enormous bones, and their vicious clawlike hooks embedded in the flesh.

  “So why clean them?”

  “We eat them ourselves!” said Dimitrios, and for the first time he smiled and his eyes flashed with life. “It doesn’t really matter. If we sell our fish then we usually eat at the tavernas, if we don’t sell, we eat our own fish. What’s the difference?”

  He took a long drink of retsina and handed me the bottle. I passed it immediately to Leos, having failed miserably to acquire a palate for pine resin-enhanced wine. Natural Greek wines are light and enjoyable—why eradicate their flavor in this way?

  Both young men spoke some English, and I wondered why they’d chosen this life. Was it just a little flurry of freedom before settling down?

  “No, no,” Dimitrios laughed. “We live this way all the time. We like it. We fish in the summer then in the winter we go home to Crete. We have a friend with a little house there. There is no winter in Crete.”

  “What about the future?”

  “Who knows? We have many good friends”—raised eyebrows and wide smiles—“and the people—especially the people of Kea—are good to us. We like this life. Every day we have fresh fish, fresh bread, fresh figs, olives, cherries—we dance if there is dancing, Leos is a good singer, I play bouzouki, we meet new people all the time. Our life is good—very good! We have everything we need—no problems!”

  A grin covered all his face and he handed me a pink fish steak. “Here—tell Siphos at the taverna to cook this for you!”

  Later on I took the bus up the long winding road to Ioulis. Sitting with my sketchpad above the little tight-knit town I felt how simple is pure contentment: a bag of dark cherries, a handful of pungent kalamata olives, a few slices of garlicky salami, a still-warm loaf from the bakery, and the sound of the wind in the almond trees. Far below the ocean flashed like scattered diamonds; cows and goats munched slow paths along the ancient terraced hills; a farmer scythed the last of the early summer hay in long slow strokes, and the old broken windmills on the ridge watched over it all as they have done for two thousand years.

  It was far too tempting: I could rent a little hillside cottage here for next to nothing, plant a garden, have my own goats, my own vine arbor, sketch, paint, and write to my heart’s content—maybe become part of the life of this small place and maybe produce something true and good out of the whole experience.

  I always seem to have been driven by one desire: to see and touch as much as possible of the earth before leaving this one life. “All that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. A mind must decide to conquer its weaknesses and meanness, its laziness and vain hopes, and cling with all its power to every second which flits away forever. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.” The spirit of Zorba speaks again.

  Then there are the moments that come so unexpectedly it’s, only later you wonder at their intensity.

  I was walking—more like climbing—up through the winding stepped streets of Ioulis. There was no breeze; the meltemi wind is a fickle friend, strong and steady some days, cooling the body and mind, and utterly absent on other days. Today it had got sidetracked somewhere on the Russian steppes and the poor little town baked on its amphitheatrical hillside in 100-degree sledgehammer heat. I should have stayed down in Korissia, safe in the shade of the harbor tavernas enjoying the tasty mezes (snacks), and crisp-broiled fish, but instead I decided to go sketching in this beehive town of Cycladean architectural complexity.

  I was most happily lost as usual in its labyrinths, passing the old mustached men in the vine-trellised tavernas playing tavli (backgammon), smelling the hot fresh bread from the bakeries, watching the old women knitting in open doorways or huddled in gossipy groups, keeping a perpetual eye on village antics and mores.

  Suddenly I spotted an old woman trying to negotiate a set of dangerous steps down the side of a steep fieldstone wall leading from her garden patch. She was dressed in ritual black with black shawl and black stockings and carried a bunch of fresh-cut daisies.

  With only one hand free she looked in danger of falling. I scampered up a dozen more whitewashed steps and helped her down. Her face had all the dourness of the island’s mythical widow-witches, deeply furrowed with lines and creases, scorched into hide-leather texture by decades under the Aegean sun. But as she reached the bottom step, she turned and smiled such a brilliant smile that the wrinkles seemed to vanish, the stony eyes sparkled, and her head turned coquettishly like a young girl’s.

  Neither of us seemed to know what to do next. She clung to my hand and just kept on smiling. I mumbled a badly pronounced greeting of “Kalimera” (good morning), which came out sounding more like “calamari,” which in turn made her giggle. Then the little moment came; she looked down at her bunch of white-petalled daisies, carefully selected the biggest one with a bright golden center, broke off a portion of the stem and, standing on her toes, pushed the flower into the hair behind my ear. She gave my hand one more squeeze and vanished down the steps, into the shadows.

  I left the daisy where she’d put it for the rest of the day. The villagers doubtless thought the sun had addled my brain, but wherever I went I was greeted by smiles and nods, and that was just fine.

  I thought I’d seen just about every kind of moon there is to see: blue ones, big cheesy harvest moons, scimitar-bladed crescents, haloed, halved, eclipsed…but this one was something unique. Over dry hills and dark brittle cliffs rose a balloon of pure pink edging slowly up into a violet-black sky and casting a pink shimmer across the still waters of the bay. The tiny night-fishing boats were edged in pink. The olive trees were shrouded in a pink fuzz. The breeze had died; there was no movement anywhere—just that big balloon moving slowly upward….

  “Asti nichita ina mahiki” (this night is magic), said Sophocles. He was usually a man of far too many words who considered himself something of a philosopher-poet but spent most of his days grilling fish over brushwood chips for his always-hungry admirers at the taverna. He was enormously proud of Kea’s history as a cultural nexus of the Cyclades during Greece’s Golden Age—birthplace of Simonides (556–468 B.C.), the lyric poet who wrote elegant epitaphs for the Greek warriors who fell at Marathon; home of the poet and playright Bacchylides, the physician Evasistratos (founder of the science of physiology), the sophist, Prodikos, and the wandering philosopher, Ariston, who considered Kea to be second only to Athens in the sophistication of its ancient culture.

  “Asti nichita ina mahiki,” said Sophocles again. The smoke from the fire swirled around his long curly strands of hair and goaty beard. He had the face of a young child in spite of all the hair; his eyes gleamed in the flames. This was a night for poetry, and he knew it.

  The islanders seem uncertain about Vourkari. Not long ago this was your traditional picturesque Cycladean fishing village, a mile or so around the bay from Korissia, with a population of fifty and maybe a dozen or so small boats. Across from the village are the excavated remains of Ayia Irini, portions of which date back to 4300 B.C. In the last year or two Vourkari has become something of a hit with the sloop-set, and the boat bums who arrive daily in their gleaming fiberglass and chrome yachts to party the night away in the quayside tavernas and the two nearby (dare I write it) discos. While the revelers seem to have little impact on the rest of the island, Vourkari is a warning that Kea’s idyllic isolation may not endure forever.

  One incident here was reassuring though, suggesting that the traditional courtesy and kindness of the Keans still flourish intact. An Australian sailor, who had regaled fellow yachtsmen with tales of his nautical prowess around the world for most of the evening, stayed on at the taverna after his company had left, enjoying a series of strong nightcaps. He eventually paid his bill and wobbled over to his boat to sleep. When he began climbing the steep gangplank, his
sense of balance left him and he looked ready to fall between the boat and the dock. Before I could even rise from my seat, the taverna owner and his three strapping sons scampered across the quay and caught the inebriated Aussie in midfall—a fall that almost certainly would have been fatal. Gradually they eased him over the rail into the boat whereupon he collapsed in a heap on the deck and promptly sank into sleep. The owner hesitated, wondering if he should put the poor man to bed but decided that may be a little too much intrusion on his privacy and returned to the taverna to the rousing applause of the customers. The sailor never knew how close he’d come to a watery end.

  It was not my idea of the perfect ride but I had little choice during the 2:00 to 5:00 P.M. siesta when the island switches off every day. For over an hour I’d been walking a shadeless road from Korissia in the direction of Panayia Kastriani monastery, stuck way on a rocky promontory up at the northeastern tip of Kea. Three cars had passed, all full. My water had run out and I was peering into a roadside shrine, wondering if the bottle of wine and ouzo inside could be used by strangers in an emergency. These shrines are all over the island, placed as tributes to the saints for fortuitous events. You often see them on dangerous bends in the mountains in recognition of someone’s miraculous recovery from a death-defying accident. They are often constructed like minibasilicas, two or three feet high, complete with towers and domes, and containing icons, photographs, votive offerings, oil lamps, and bottles of alcohol.

  I had almost decided that the saints would applaud my initiative when along came this battered truck carrying a huge black bull, bowlegged by its own enormity. Surprisingly the truck stopped and two equally enormous bull-necked men gestured that I could join the animal in the back if I wished. My “beggars can’t be choosers” attitude prevailed, and I spent a most uncomfortable twenty minutes dodging the lashing tail and restless hooves of the bull as we passed the lovely Otzias beach (flashes of nude bathing here) and climbed higher and higher into the brittle, tawny hills.

  Eventually we reached a small whitewashed farm overlooking the western beaches and bays. The two large men, obviously brothers, invited me to join them under the vine arbor. We sat on benches in the shade with our backs against the rough fieldstone walls of the house. Inside the rooms were small and bare with stone floors; a woman was moving around in the shadows; enormous sunflowers waved outside the rear windows. A cock crowed and a donkey replied and they began an extended dialog of brayings and doodledoos. The brothers laughed.

  “That is the new donkey. The best on the island!” He told me he’d paid over 70,000 drachmas for the animal, more than $500. “A car is very expensive. The government double the price with taxes. This donkey—it will go anywhere. Very strong!”

  The woman emerged with a bottle and glasses on a tray. Her wrinkled face was shrouded in a black shawl. The elder of the two brothers, Yiorgio, poured the ouzo, and we added our own water, watching the liquid turn milky. “Yaisou! To your health!”

  I felt utterly at home. Below the farm, terraces descended to a dry valley filled with pink-flowered koumara bushes. They say witches used to eat the leaves of this bush before casting spells. Halfway down were twenty or so blue-wooded beehives (Kea is famous for its thyme honey). The terraces were still golden with barley stubble; the crop had just been cut and lay in high piles on the circular threshing terrace near the house. Cicadas buzzsawed in the fig trees; dozens of baby green figs peeped from under the big leaves. Grapes dangling from vines above our heads looked almost ready to eat.

  Yiorgio stretched out his arms expansively. “We have everything—yes? We have the figs, grapes in September, maybe we make tsipuro (a fiery liquor derived from grape pips and skins), we have the olives in October, we hunt for rabbits and partridge, we have hay for the cows, we have goats, we grow tomatoes and cucumbers, my cousin has a fishing boat so we have fish all the time—and my mother makes the best bread on Kea!” He pointed with pride to the huge domed oven streaked with wood smoke at the side of the house.

  A bright lizard flashed across the courtyard and vanished behind a line of flowery plants set in colorful ten-liter olive oil cans. Over the terraces a hawk hung in the sky, floating on the spirals, slowly circling, waiting to drop like a stone on some unsuspecting creature far below in the valley. “Yaisou!” said Yiorgio again. We all smiled together, and kept on smiling.

  Much, much later I arrived at the Panayia Kastriani monastery perched on the top of towering cliffs overlooking a violet-blue ocean. Pappa Leftares, the Orthodox priest who oversees the little citadel, was away, but I was treated royally by a matronly caretaker and six children. The moment I arrived they rushed me off to see the cell-like rooms with tiny balconies overlooking the sea (the monks are gone and visitors can stay here for a few dollars a night). The ornate domed chapel in the center of the compound was being restored, but in spite of all the internal scaffolding the icons and frescoes sparkled in a soft white light.

  One of the children who spoke a little English told me the tale of the monastery: “There were some shepherds on this hill, a long, long time ago, and they saw a glow in the earth and were very frightened and ran to bring all the people of the island. And when they all came they walked into the glow and found the beautiful icon of the Madonna so they built a church.”

  I marveled at the faith of the islanders to construct this ornate complex in such a remote place but—there again—Kea has hundreds of tiny white chapels built from fieldstone on the isolated terraces. And even today, in an increasingly secular world, each chapel is whitewashed every year, the icons and altars are cleaned and candles lit every week, sometimes every day. Faith is a tangible reality here; the old ways still have meaning.

  When I eventually returned to Korissia that evening I saw the village priest walking toward the quay in his long black robes and inverted stovepipe hat. He was a small stocky man with a huge grizzly beard, his long brown hair was tied in a knot at the back of his head below his hat. I wished him “Kali spera” (good evening) and he paused, looked very intently into my face, and smiled. In fumbling Greek I tried to explain that I had just visited the monastery, and in the middle of my garbled monologue he stepped up to me (his head only reached my shoulders) and gave me a truly rib-cracking bear hug. Then he shook my hand, smiled the brightest smile, and continued on toward the quay.

  There were moments when all the little magics of this place coalesced…I lay in the warm ocean at midnight, just floating there, with the water tickling my toes and the night breeze sending briny ripples across my stomach. The smell of wild sage and thyme wafted down from the hills around the bay. I could hear the chatter of the boat riggings from the harbor dock and the endlessly plaintive bouzouki songs; I could smell the lamb roasts and grilling souvlakia from the quayside tavernas; I could hear Savros bawling out the orders in his sandpaper voice to a never-ending array of family members sweating over hot stoves….

  I just floated, utterly weightless, with all these sounds and smells mingling together, and the moment seemed to go on and on…

  Many lazy days later, just before dawn, I reluctantly left tiny Kea. The ferry eased out of the harbor and into the Aegean. Korissia quickly disappeared behind its sheltering bluff, and as we gathered speed the sun slowly rose from the ocean in a violet-pink haze. I saw the terraced hills of the island for a final time, layer on blue layer, before they slowly disappeared into the early morning mists.

  10. IRAN

  Boar-ing Days by the Caspian Sea

  Don’t ask how I got there.

  It’s a long story and I’m in Tehran only sort of semilegally. The problem in post-Shah Iran is that almost everything is illegal or dangerous or “not advisable” for western “Satanists.”

  Fortunately, in another lifetime there, I had developed many strong friendships during my two-year stint as an urban master planner working under the hovering eye of the Shah and the Shah’s wife, the Empress Farah (once a trainee architect), on the future plan for Tehran’s growth. Hav
ing a king and queen as overseers led to many strange occurrences, and I can’t resist relating one of them before the tale of this particular adventure begins.

  It was sometime back in 1968 and we were all in the Shah’s palace, the Saltan Atabad, high in the foothills of the Elburz Mountains that tower over the city. We had been summoned to present our projection for population growth in the city over the following thirty years or so. The figures were alarming. Even assuming a scenario of moderate growth, we had concluded that by the end of the century, the capital would find itself home to over sixteen million Iranians, up from a mere two and a half million at that time.

  The Shah stared at us incredulously. (The Empress smiled benevolently as she always seemed to do.)

  “And this is the basis upon which you would design your plan for the city?”

  Our team leader coughed. “These are the projections, Your Majesty, following a very careful analysis of population characteristics, longevity factors, migration trends, birth rate statistics, and…”

  The Shah raised his hand and our leader stopped abruptly in midflow.

  “I will issue an edict.”

  A sudden flurry of activity. Ministers shuffled papers, assistants opened large red books, two finely dressed gentlemen, who appeared to be acting as scribes, stood formally by their high desks, with pens poised over single sheets of gold-edged paper.

  The Shah looked around to ensure that all was ready and slowly made his pronouncement as the scribes scribbled.

  “This is my edict. By the year 1995 the population of the city of Tehran shall be no more than five and one half million. We shall create other alternative growth centers in other of our major cities, and the plans for the future of the capital shall be prepared based upon this edict.”