The Firewalkers Page 3

The German had passed by us into a corner of the taverna when his head hit one of the phallus-like rolls of a heavily seasoned dry tongue much eaten in Macedonia, that were hanging from the ceiling. The roll, unhooked at the impact, began to fall and, instinctively, the German put up both hands to catch it, forgetting the pot which crashed to the floor and was at once shattered to pieces. One of the lieutenants gave a high-pitched squeal of delight, while the others all smiled down at the table. The German was kneeling on the floor picking up the broken shards, which he dusted in turn on the sleeve of his tartan wind-jacket. When they had all been collected he carried them over to his table and, sitting down, began to fit them against one another; but since he had no glue, this seemed to me a futile exercise—as he himself must have at last realised, for all at once he pushed the pieces from him, with the petulant and humiliated expression of a child who has smashed a toy, and called for the waiter, from whom I heard him order a plate of bean soup. As he waited for his food to be brought to him, he rummaged in his several pockets to produce odd tattered five-hundred and thousand drachmae notes which he smoothed out, counted and then placed in a heap before him.

  Theo had been watching him intently and now he leant forward: ‘Excuse me, sir.’ The German continued to smooth out a crumpled note. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Theo said louder.

  The German looked up, his harelip seeming to twitch in apprehension.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ Theo pursued.

  ‘A little.’ The voice was of a rumbling profundity, as though vast express trains were racing deep in the bowels of the earth.

  ‘Ah, good. I was wondering if you could tell me where you bought that pot which has just had such an unfortunate—er—accident.’

  The German explained that there was a small shop on the outskirts of the town, and agreed that he would lead Theo there if the old man wished. Meanwhile the waiter had put down before the German a steaming plate of dried beans cooked in oil and garlic and raising his spoon with a murmured ‘Excuse me’ he began to gulp noisily. ‘Appetit!’ said Theo and turned to hiss at Cecil:

  ‘May I ask him over?’

  Cecil pulled a face, as though he had just put something bitter in his mouth. ‘Must you?’ he said.

  The German was asking the price of a glass of wine as Theo pleaded: ‘ He can’t afford anything but that plate of soup. And we shall never eat all this.’ He pointed to the feast before us.

  ‘You’re making a good try,’ Cecil said. ‘Oh, all right, all right.’

  Theo got up and made a ceremonious bow at the other table as he said: ‘ Forgive me for troubling you once again, sir, but my friends and I would be extremely honoured if you would come and join us.’

  The pink eyelashes blinked uncomprehendingly and the large Adam’s apple bounced up and down as the German swallowed his mouthful of soup.

  ‘Do please join us.’ Theo pointed in our direction with the palm of one hand.

  The German began to pick up what lay on the table before him: first the tattered and soiled scraps of money which he stuffed into a pocket; then the broken shards which he proceeded to tie up in a filthy khaki handkerchief; and finally the plate of soup. Then he came over.

  ‘Do you really want to eat that mess?’ Cecil said, nodding at the soup-plate. ‘We’ve so much food here.’

  ‘Yes, I shall eat it,’ the German said stolidly. He put the plate down, and extended a paw: ‘Götz Joachim,’ he said. ‘Götz Joachim … Götz Joachim.’ We each of us winced in turn and surreptitiously rubbed our bruised fingers under the table.

  ‘And what has brought you here?’ Theo asked.

  ‘The firewalking.’ Noisily the soup was sucked from the spoon down the bull-like throat.

  ‘I mean—what has brought you to Greece?’

  Götz Joachim smiled: it was the first time I had seen him do so, and it was the first time that I found myself looking closely at him without a feeling of horror. It says much for the charm of that smile that it could work this transfiguration. ‘I love Greece,’ he said simply.

  ‘Bravo!’ Theo put an arm round one of the German’s massive, slumped shoulders. ‘That is the best reason in the world for being in Greece.… Now you must eat this Scotch egg. Do you have Scotch eggs in Germany?’

  ‘I don’t think Frank has had an egg, has he?’ Cecil put in. The egg was the last, Theo himself having already devoured four.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ I said embarrassed. ‘I don t really want it.’

  ‘Come—you must be hungry,’ Theo said to Götz, making no acknowledgement of my act of self-sacrifice.

  The egg went in two large bites, and Theo, who had watched in admiration, now began to pile slice after slice of chicken and ham on a plate. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Vonderful!’ It was, I later discovered, one of the two words that Götz always used when he felt either pleasure or admiration: the other was ‘fantastic’.

  Theo continued to question him: but though, being a Greek, he had no inhibitions about probing into the most intimate details of the lives of strangers, he could get little from Götz. The German was unmarried, and he came from Munich where his father was ‘in business’; he was twenty-eight years old; and he had been travelling about Greece for the last two and a half years. He was a photographer, he added.

  ‘Then where is your camera?’ Theo asked.

  Götz explained simply that his camera was in pawn.

  ‘Then how can you make any money?’

  The German shrugged his shoulders and began to laugh uproariously at the expression of concern on Theo’s face. Soon the two men began to laugh together, Theo’s arm once again about Götz’s shoulder as they rocked to and fro. I guessed that they had both drunk too much of the ‘just vinegar’ which the officers had sent us.

  ‘ ‘‘… The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,’’ ‘ Cecil murmured.

  After lunch, Götz went back to rejoin the Anastanarides in their smoky shack, Cecil settled himself to sleep in the car, and Theo announced that he was going across the marshes to search for a species of willow only to be found in this part of Macedonia. ‘Don’t be late,’ Cecil said. He turned to me: ‘ Theo has no sense of time. We missed the ’ plane when we came from Athens, and had to wait a whole day.… What time will the firewalking begin?’

  ‘My friend, the Commissioner of Police, says not till after four. He has, of course, got seats for us. Good seats.’

  ‘Well, be back at three-thirty.’

  It was not until half-past four that Theo trudged, dusty but cheerful, into the café where I was sitting reading a book. ‘Look!’ he cried triumphantly, holding out what, to my inexperienced eyes, seemed to be nothing but a handful of tattered branches. ‘I’ve found it. Do you see how the leaves grow? The abnormality lies in the——’

  ‘It’s already half-past four. Don’t you think we ought to be going?’

  ‘Does botany not interest you?’ he asked coldly.

  ‘No, not really. But anyway, we must get to the firewalking——’

  Theo rearranged the branches in his hand, shaking them so that their dust left a film on my half-drunk cup of coffee. ‘ It must be strange to have lived all one’s life in towns.’

  I had never said that I had lived all my life in towns; it was not even true. But now I merely continued: ‘ Cecil will be cross, if we don’t wake him at once.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Theo said. ‘ You’re quite right, quite right.’ His feelings towards Cecil were a curious mixture of affection, fear and that resentment which we involuntarily bear towards those from whom we are forced to accept charity. ‘Cecil is not very—patient,’ he added.

  So far from being patient, Cecil was in the vilest of tempers when he awoke. I knew just how he would be feeling as Theo shook his shoulder. There would be pins and needles in one of his legs and the other would seem to be three inches shorter than when he had gone to sleep. The skin of his face would feel too tight, his tongue too loose, and his throat too small. A
s he moved to get himself out of the car a small stone would seem to rattle about in his head while a large one would shift uneasily in his stomach. ‘Oh God!’ he muttered. Then he hiccoughed and said: ‘That foul wine! … What time is it?’

  ‘It’s past four,’ Theo said evasively.

  Cecil looked at the gold watch on his thin, hairy wrist. ‘Past four! Do you realise that it’s now nearly five. And I particularly told you—oh really, Theo! I expect we’ve missed everything.’ His tie had slipped down and Theo, tucking his branches under his arm, put out two hands to adjust the knot as he murmured scathingly, ‘Now, don’t worry. Don’t worry. The Commissioner of Police——’

  ‘You’ll dirty my tie—look at your fingers! And what are you doing with those branches? … Oh come on, come on!’ He strode off, hobbling a little on his left leg, and we hurried after him. ‘There, I told you so!’ he turned and hissed at us as, in the distance, we could see a vast throng milling about the enclosure in which the firewalking would take place. ‘What did I tell you?’

  There then followed some ten minutes during which Theo ran from group to group of police officers, explaining who we were (I had, by then, become Sir Winston Churchill’s son-in-law and Cecil was the Argentine ambassador) while Cecil shrilled in English at the gendarmes who were holding the crowds back from the entrance to the already packed enclosure: ‘What does this mean?’ he demanded of them. ‘Why can’t we go in? Do you realise that I’ve come all the way from Italy just to see this? I’ve never come across such idiotic inefficiency!’ He turned to me: ‘Shall I slip them something?’

  ‘Would it be wise? Don’t forget that the British now have a Police Mission in Greece.’

  ‘Then it’s a pity that they didn’t give their advice on how to organise this show.’

  Theo eventually arrived with the calming assurance that ‘everything was arranged’. ‘The moment they knew that I was Colonel Grecos of the historic Florina incident, all went smoothly.’

  ‘It seemed to take them a long time to find out,’ Cecil said venomously.

  ‘Oh, naturally, all the young officers wanted to have a word with me.’

  Once again escorted by two gendarmes through the protesting crowds, we found ourselves in the second row of chairs that had been arranged for Government officials, the Corps Diplomatique and friends of the Mayor. ‘So,’ said Theo, sighing as he attempted to ease his chair backwards on to the knees of the matron seated behind him, and at the same time thrust his long legs forward, ‘ it’s not too bad, is it? We shall see splendidly.… Excuse me, sir!’ He had succeeded in all but tipping the occupant of the chair in front—an E.C.A. administrator—into the dust. ‘All’s well that ends well—isn’t that what you say?’

  But all was far from ending well. Two old men had pushed a cart containing dry branches into the enclosure and had built up a fire; and now, as we waited, the dry wind blowing the smoke into our faces so that our throats tickled and our eyes streamed, I noticed that, time and time again, the crowds succeeded in breaking through the cordons of policemen. At first these intruders contented themselves with either joining the mob already packed behind our seats or filling the gangways; but then, when these places had all been wedged so tight that they could no longer stand there, they began to thrust themselves between us and the bonfire on which the Anastanarides would dance. The police tried to push them away; but they would retreat momentarily only to surge back again until the whole narrow space about the smoking bonfire was full of shoving, screaming, coughing people. I saw a policeman pursuing a small girl, rather as though they were playing a game of hide-and-seek among the crowds until catching her he passed her out over the barbed wire of the enclosure; another policeman put both arms round a struggling old woman and lugged her to the entrance where she was unceremoniously expelled with a push on the behind. The Chief of Police to whom Theo had originally spoken now began to stride up and down, all his former apathy gone as he shouted at the people before us: ‘I command you—please leave this place! Leave this place! Leave this place!’ The crowds continued to fight their way in. ‘ I appeal to you, as Greeks. Think of these foreign diplomats—’ as he pointed at our rows of chairs, I thought that really Cecil had made a convincing Argentine ambassador—‘ who have come here to view this spectacle. We have here a reporter from the London Times! A reporter from Life magazine! What will they write about the discipline and order in Greece?’ I felt a vague schizophrenia at this splitting of my personality. Then he threatened: ‘If you do not move, the Anastanarides will not dance! They will not dance! I shall not allow them to dance! I warn you! Unless you move, nothing will happen!’ There were guffaws, obscene shouts and a gentle patter of stones. Tearfully now the Chief of Police demanded: ‘What am I to do? What am I to say to you? I am ashamed of you! I am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed of Greece!’

  ‘We shall see nothing,’ Cecil said. ‘Oh, damn them! What are the police doing?’ He stood up and shouted: ‘Get out of the way! How do you expect us to see? You’ve no right to be there! You!’ He pointed at the Chief of Police. ‘Do something about this.’

  Theo caught him by the back of his coat and pulled him on to his chair. ‘ Don’t be silly, Cecil. You’ll gain nothing like that.’ Another gust of smoke swept over us and we all began coughing. ‘Have you noticed how catching hysteria always is?’ Theo murmured to me. He pointed to the American administrator who was poking a Greek peasant with his walking-stick and shouting at the same time in English: ‘You heard me! Get to hell out of here! Get to hell out of here! Beat it!’

  Far off there now sounded the thud of drums, the squeal of pipes. A momentary hush fell, as everyone listened: the dancers were coming. Then, with an even more frenzied shouting, those outside the enclosure resumed the struggle to fight their way in, while those within no less tenaciously struggled to retain or improve their places. ‘Sit down! Sit down!’ the crowds behind us shouted at the people standing between our chairs and the bonfire. ‘Sit down! We can see nothing!’ Stones skimmed over our heads as the two parties entered into battle. I saw a boy with a jaggedly bleeding cut over one temple gleefully lob stone after stone into the crowded pit behind us; an old man was having hysterics; a child was screaming as it was pushed nearer and nearer the flames.

  No doubt many people would have been injured if, at that moment, the Anastanarides had not appeared. I myself could see nothing from where I sat except the ikons bobbing above the crowds, as the music drew closer; but suddenly Theo grabbed my arm and shouted: ‘ Look who is with them!’

  ‘Who?’ But even as I said the word, I had a glimpse, momentarily, of sunlight flashing on straw-coloured hair. ‘The German!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘The German!’ Theo echoed. ‘But what has happened to Cecil?’ Cecil’s chair was empty; and before I could look for him, the man seated behind me began to climb over the back of my chair into my lap. He was a large man, in a dark blue suit, and I guessed that he was probably a haberdasher. His expression was bemusedly intent and, as he was no acrobat, he had to assist himself by clutching to my collar while his small feet, in their shiny, pointed black shoes, scrabbled on the wooden back of the chair. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked in Greek.

  He grunted, but said nothing.

  ‘Please leave go—both of me and the chair.’

  He toppled and steadied himself by clutching my ear.

  ‘Get down!’ I shouted. I gave him a push and he slipped across the lap of the matron beside him. At once he jumped up and hissed at me: ‘You are very nervy.’ Again he began to scrabble up my seat, this time clutching me by the hair while his toes sought for footholds in my pockets. Again I tried to push him, but he only clutched tighter. At this point Theo saw what was happening, and turning, he lashed out at the man with his branches of willow; leaves and dust descending upon me as the man gave a roar of mingled anger and pain. Again he fell into the lap of the matron, and again he leapt up, this time to grapple with Theo. But somehow, not intentionally, I got between th
e two. Fortunately my assailant was an even less expert fighter than myself, and we merely swayed from side to side, our arms on each other’s shoulders, until innumerable hands plucked us apart.

  ‘He is a foreigner,’ the matron shouted, and the people about us took up her cry: ‘A foreigner! Fancy attacking a foreigner! What will he think of Langada? What will he think of Greece?’

  All at once I felt a desire to get away: shouting at my assailant, ‘Thank you for your philoxeny!’ (I transliterate the word since the English ‘ hospitality’ does not make an adequate translation), I began to fight for the entrance. By then I was in a panic and I know that I behaved badly: I swore in Greek and English, pushed, pulled, and even, on one occasion, punched a man in the stomach when he refused to give way. Suddenly I slipped, my toe catching a chair, and I was down with the crowd over me. I struggled to rise, but felt a boot graze my cheek; again I struggled and this time something jolted in my right ribs with an agonising impact. I tried to protect my face with my arms.

  Someone was shouting above me; I felt two vast hands under my arm-pits. I was being dragged along, my heels tearing at the soil; I was half-crying with fear and exasperation. ‘There!’ I had been dumped on a slope beside some scraps of soiled paper, rusty tin-cans and a goat which jerked away on its tether, leaping into the air, as I and my rescuer neared it. I put my hands to my face and found that it was wet.

  ‘Blood!’ a deep voice said, followed by a rumble of laughter.

  I looked up. Legs wide apart and hands on hips, there stood before me a gendarme who looked as if he might be heavy-weight boxing champion of the Greek police force. He had a moustache so large that one could see little of his face beyond two brilliant, jet-coloured eyes, a massive chin of the purple colour common among men who have to shave twice a day, and a nose that had obviously been flattened by someone’s fist. He was the exact antithesis of Götz, since his size and almost brutal ugliness, so far from repelling, exerted a kind of fascination. He now stooped above me, and examined my cut eye with fingers that were certainly clumsy and probably not clean. He whistled in a way that alarmed me, and then said: ‘Come!’ Putting an arm round my shoulder he began to support me up a track that led to the central square. ‘We shall go to the chemist.’