Thoreau Bound, page 11
With children, a grownup must always give a spark of hope.
The whistle blew again. The kids scrambled into the cart attached to the van, then they rolled their bodies in the soft cotton fibers. Rumbling and roaring, the van drove down the dirt-covered path. Huge eyes looked back at me, small hands waved, and grateful voices shouted out good-byes.
Now the setting sun — Apollo, the god of reason and order — knocked off for the rest of the day. Night-goddesses, filled with a primitive boldness, devoured the last morsels of fading light. Cicadas hummed; the air cooled slightly; the red-hot planet Venus flickered in the evening sky. The Gypsy women, renewed by the sensuous night and the prospect of a satisfying meal, like little children came alive. Their voices and their movements glowed with passion, vitality, enthusiasm, delight. Scurrying all around me, the women made a fire for cooking, arranged branches for a bonfire, and expertly prepared the orgy of revitalizing food.
“Katerina,” I said. “What can I do to help?”
Katerina picked up one of my books and tossed it at me.
“Stay out of the way, Thoreau!” she said, with a mischievous smile. “Now, you do nothing, you rest. Later we weel need you very much.”
I have never liked to be waited on — I want to relate with every human being as an equal, not better and not worse. This time, I would let the women serve me. My principles would yield to the prominent exception. The women were taking joy in the process of making me a marvelous meal.
I took off my sneakers and socks then sat down beneath the branches of an olive tree. The cicadas were sounding louder. The sky shone with a magically romantic purple-blue. Fireflies flashed their glowing tails. I opened my book by Dante, but I could not concentrate hard enough to enter Paradiso. Compared to the reality around, the paper and ink seemed so lifeless and so dry.
Meli walked by, stopped, gently pressed her bare foot onto the top of my foot, then without looking back walked on. Barely a moment later a humming Romantza approached me from behind, pulled my earlobe, then ran away after she had pressed her foot on mine.
Up came the moon and the cicadas hummed louder still. The ten women and the one man sat on the ground together in a tight circle. A feast of food was served, warm and fresh, in hand-carved wooden bowls. Katerina pressed the mouth of a wine bottle against her lips and then swallowed a deep drink. She wiped her mouth with her arm, then poked her fingers into my shoulder.
“Thoreau. Why you don’t drink your wine?”
“I can’t drink, Katerina. One drink, and like a baby I fall asleep.”
“Wine makes you sleep? That’s no good. What makes you awake?”
Before answering I paused. These women had trusted me, laughed with me, treated me like a friend. They deserved the truth and the whole truth.
“What keeps me awake? Many things. The simple elements that renew every man. Good food, good nights, good music, and good love.”
Katerina shouted something and in less than a minute, four more bowls of rice-vegetable stew and a hill of fruits were set before me. Long after everyone else had finished, I was still plowing through the fields of food.
What a perfect perfect night! The radiant faces of the women shined under the moonlight. An invigorating chill tingled the sweet October air. Whirring music from the cicadas grew louder and louder as the night flew on. The world of men in the cities was filled with strife, but here in the hills, amidst this empire of women, I had discovered a sanctuary of friendship, trust, cheerfulness, peace. Shyness had now been banished from our kingdom: all the women smiled at me with brilliant eyes.
On my left sat Romantza and Meli; on my right, Katerina, brushing Thalia’s soft dark hair. The women gazed at me as if they were now waiting for my tale.
“This is the magic night,” I said. “A night like this happens once, only once, every 6,209 days. These insects we’re hearing are mistakenly called ‘seventeen-year locusts’. But that’s not the right name. They’re not related to the locusts that destroy. They are cicadas. In the Orient, and in ancient Greece, cicadas were kept like nightingales, so the people could enjoy their songs.”
The whirring sounds grew louder, faster, and more passionate.
“Imagine existing underground for seventeen years, then suddenly rising to see and feel the wondrous beauty of a night like this! The cicadas live for about one week. One week to live, to eat, to grow, to love, to breed, to die. Rubbing their hind legs, the males make this music to attract females to the long-awaited night of bugly love.”
Something about this factual description made the women laugh and laugh. Katerina tied Thalia’s hair into a long ponytail, then kissed the young woman’s forehead.
“They wait seventeen years to mate,” said Katerina, glancing at Thalia then glancing back at me.
The fire blazed up and suddenly I was feeling too warm. Near me, three of the women were feeding the bright bonfire from a tall stack of branches and dried shrubs they had gathered in piles nearby. I slid backwards on my bottom to escape the expanding smoke and the rising heat.
Romantza whispered a question into Katerina’s ear, and when the Gypsy leader laughed and nodded yes, the women jumped up with a joyful shout. Katerina kneeled behind me, pressed her knees against the bottom of my back, then combed my knotty hair. She spoke in a whisper like a breeze rustling the leaves.
“No man has ever seen this, Thoreau. And no other man will ever see it.”
I imagined that these rites would reveal, with a Gypsy accent, the classic secret ceremony, a symbolic play representing the resurrection of a goddess.
“I’m honored, Katerina,” I said. “I’ve read many books about these kinds of sacred rites. Every October in Athens, in the good old days of Aristophanes, a festival called the Thesmophoria was held — for women only — to worship the Earth-goddess Demeter.”
It would not be necessary, I thought, to mention the Maenads who tore the limbs off voyeuristic men; or the Dionysian orgies at Delphi; or the wild nights of licentious revel that were celebrated in many states in Greece. Katerina tugged my hair with the comb, then laughed, then pulled my left earlobe.
“What are you now thinking, Thoreau? Eh?”
She greased my head with olive oil and mint leaves, then rubbed her fingers though my curly hair. Some of the women had raised their instruments, and the song of the cicadas was now joined by drum beats and the piping from a flute. Seven women appeared, then danced around the flickering bonfire. Now and then they would stop, bend down as if to pray, then throw a bunch of sticks into the growing blaze. The women were chanting in the exotic-sounding Gypsy language that I could not understand but loved to hear. I turned my head to Katerina.
“What does it mean?” I asked. And the dancing and chanting continued while the queen of the Gypsies explained.
“Goddess of the Earth, Goddess of the fires
The more sticks she devours, the more sticks she desires.”
The moon and the man watched captivated as the night filled with a frenzy of piping and chanting and dance. The bonfire raged higher, as if its sole desire was to swallow the moon and all the stars. Cicadas vigorously sang. The once-cool air grew warmer all the time. The pipe-player entered the scene carrying a basket, then sprinkled flowers on top of the dancers’ heads. For a moment, the sprightly dancers vanished from my sight. The spectacle upcoming roused my masculine curiosity.
When the players reappeared, they came as a circle of six women — bright and naked as the full moon — barely covered by their long dark hair. Arms raised like branches, they mimed the roles of trees in a magic forest. Hidden inside these woods stood another woman, also unclothed, her slender body draped with night-black hair that flowed from head to waist. This would be the young Thalia, who fell gently to the ground and pretended to fall asleep.
“Watch theess very carefully, Thoreau,” Katerina advised.
“Katerina,” I said, knowing that the next words would make her smile. “Men can be exceptionally dense, and I am an exceptional man. But telling a man to watch carefully when naked women are dancing, is like telling —”
“Shut up your mouth and open your eyes, Thoreau!” Katerina replied.
Sleeping Thalia tosses and turns, obviously disturbed by her daring dreams. Drums beat steadily as a pipe plays a sensuous strain. The tree-women dance in place, waving their branches-arms. They point to Thalia, who wakes, runs to each tree, stares at it with awe, then slowly caresses the trees with her elegant hands. Swaying like willows, the trees begin a lascivious dance. Frightened, Thalia tries to escape. She runs, but each step leads her deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine woods. The dance of dancers grows faster and more seductive. Thalia covers her ears. Sounds from the pipe call to her desires. She follows the music, escapes the reaching hands of the trees, and breaks free from the forest’s bounds. Thalia laughs in relief, then — O fateful gaze! — looks back at the enticing trees. Thalia’s backward glance makes the tree-women scream, and liberates them from their roots.
Ten times, these gorgeous nymphs chased Thalia around the fire.
Was it my imagination? Or the delusion produced from the rare experience of enjoying a colossal meal? ... Each time they danced by, the bodies of the women seemed to grow more lively and lovely, more passionate, more savagely robust.
Catching her at last, her companions lifted Thalia by her arms and legs, then carried her around the crackling fire. Every time around they would pretend to throw the young woman into the bonfire’s heart. And each time that they stopped, they moved her closer and closer to the wiggling fingers of the fire.
“Katerina,” I said, “they’re getting too close to the fire.”
Katerina pulled my right earlobe.
“That’s the point, Thoreau,” she said. She placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear. “Only the sky-god can save her now. The sky-god disguises himself as a man. A strong handsome man who fears nothing in the earth or sky.”
My mouth fell open. I looked at Katerina. Calmly nodding, she looked back at me. I ran into the horde of laughing dancers, grabbed the naked Thalia, then carried her in my arms away from the burning flames.
Katerina slipped a blanket around Thalia, who sipped water then peacefully smiled. The dancers and musicians gathered around her. They kissed Thalia on her cheeks and forehead, they twittered like birds, and then they told her about the oldest and most secret Gypsy ways.
I lay back on the ground and looked up at the sky. Were the stars laughing at me? I had asked that question a thousand times. I could never tell before and I could not tell now. This life, and the women in this life, are mysteries that no man can ever understand. The human mind is never large enough to grasp the human soul. But to understand is not always necessary. All men need to do with women is to appreciate, to love, to give.
“Chich-chich. Chich-chich-chich. Chich-chich. Chich-chich-chich. Chich-chich.”
I was trying to imitate the sounds of the cicadas, whose whirring music crescendoed from loud to almost deafening. The women, now dressed, had calmed down — I ingenuously imagined — after the releasing power of the dance. They had gathered around Thalia and they were talking and laughing with great energy. Blankets were piled on top of blankets, then covered with dried flower petals and the soft leaves of sage. Small wooden cups were filled with olive oil. Using my knife, Katerina cut lemons in half and waved them at the women, who giggled and shrieked as she spoke.
Between the fluctuating cries of the cicadas I heard Romantza shouting:
“I want to be the first!”
Some kind of disagreement started, which Katerina resolved by spinning an empty wine bottle, then giving each woman a number from one to nine. The cicadas’ songs were drowned beneath a wild roar of womanly laughter. Again I looked up at the stars. The air filled up with the fragrant and stimulating aroma of rose water. The quiet Meli was kneeling at my side.
“Thoreau,” she said, tapping my hand with her fingertips. “Are you listening? I want to ask you something.”
“Yes, Meli.”
She squeezed my hand between her hands.
“Marry me for one night. Will you?”
I sat up. In Meli’s comely face I saw the purest most rapturous love.
“Meli,” I said, not knowing what next to say. I squeezed her hand. “I like you, Meli. I care about you very much. But what about the others? They will be hurt in their hearts if I chose only you.”
Meli turned her head and shouted something to her sisters, who rushed to me with bouncing titters and steady eyes.
“Marry me, Thoreau!” shouted Romantza.
“Marry me!” shouted Thalia.
And the six other women demanded the same.
Katerina, holding her sides as she laughed, stepped through the excited crowd, but not soon enough to keep Romantza from wrapping me inside her arms.
“You gave pomegranates to all of us!” shouted Romantza. “You said you liked us all! Remember?”
Romantza’s lightning outburst was followed by a laughing storm.
“Katerina,” I said. “Meli, Romantza, Thalia, everyone. ... Men and women are not the same but they are equal. ... I think it’s best if just one man and one woman play these love-games together. ... Too many women at once with one man cannot be fully satisfying for the women.”
Katerina kissed the air and held up the hourglass.
“Thoreau, we know that. One man, one woman. One woman, one hour. Katalavehees?”
I screamed. As loudly and lustily as ten thousand insects in the fields. The women howled with laughter at my astonished face. Katerina faced her family.
“He understands now,” she said.
She turned to me and waved her hands.
“Thoreau,” said Katerina. “Do you want, or do you not want? Decide!”
11
Panzano Explains Why The Rooster Crows At Dawn
Tucked in the harbor at Agios Nikolodeonos, and kissed by the morning light, the old boat rocked with laughter. The story of my misfortunes had amazed and amused the entire audience. Everyone had laughed and cried, everyone except for one fun-hating nun, who pushed her way through the crowd and then rammed into Panzano, knocking him off his crate.
Built like a bell and filled with unimaginable flab, when she walked she waddled, when she walked backwards she beeped. Like a drilling woodpecker, she poked her fingers against my bare chest. Her furrowed face frowned from an ancient slow-moving epoch, but harsh words flew from her tongue at supersonic speeds.
“I am Mother Zitella Whackanzakis,” she rapidly said. “These are my chaste nuns, and each one is a verified virgin who has never stood under a street lamp, and never understood a man! Today is the first time they have left our monastery, and we are traveling to an art museum on the reverent island of Rhodes. You and your sagas of love and desire must not lead these angels astray!”
Three times the Mother-nun clapped her warty hands. Immediately eleven nuns stepped out from the crowd, and then stood in a straight line shoulder-to-shoulder behind her. Hoods and veils obscured the better parts of their faces; and their white habits with blue crosses on the front, all identical, made height the only method for telling them apart. Mother-nun introduced her brood by calling out their names, and as each name resounded, the nun stepped forward and curtsied modestly.
“This is Forza ... Donnabella ... Volutta ... Scherza ... Agevolezza ... Impetuosamenta ... Anima ... Celerita ... Bria ... Voleggianda ... and Dolcezza. ... Dolcezza!”
The last-named nun, too shy to move, stood on her spot until the other ten sisters stepped backwards to place her in the front. When she realized she was standing all alone, Dolcezza ran and hid behind Mother Whackanzakis’s substantial posterior.
Panzano stood up on wobbly legs and uncertain feet. He shook his head as his fingers groped his scalp to feel two swelling bumps.
“An oak is not cut down,” he said, “by a single blow from an axe. But I wish that that nun-Mother would have given me one bowl of cooked oatmeal instead of these two raw eggs.”
A rooster chasing a flock of chickens scurried across the boat’s wooden deck. Mother-nun snatched the male bird and thrust him into Panzano’s hands.
“This bird must not chase the chickens with improper attentions,” she shouted. “And you and your friend must not tell stories that set fire to the hearts of my innocent nuns!”
The rooster screeched stridently, as if he wanted to get back to his business. Panzano placed him on the deck, and the bird rushed to the nearest chicken female and jumped on top of her back. Mother-nun screeched and then commanded her eleven nuns — who had taken vows of poverty, chastity, obedience — to cover their eyes with their hands.
Panzano shook his head.
“Dear Mother,” he said. “Like soup and garlic, these stories can only do you good. Listen with both ears open, and you will be warned against things that could happen, and entertained by the things that actually did.”
The crowd laughed as the rooster strutted proudly, then jumped into the arms of his friend Panzano, who placed the bird on top of his head “to hatch my eggs,” he said. A loud belch bellowed from Panzano’s bottomless belly.
“‘Vaso vuoto suona meglio’,” he said. “‘An empty vessel makes the loudest sounds’. And it’s truer than true what they say in Tuscany: ‘La fame muta le fave in mandole’ — ‘hunger makes the bean taste like an almond.’”
Panzano patted his round stomach.
“If only I had some nourishment to wake me up, I could tell you the story of why the rooster crows every morning at dawn.”
A generous crowd soon supplied this gluttonous Aesop with beans and almonds and a large crock of wildflower honey, which Panzano greeted by dipping his hand into the pot then licking the honey-covered palm. Mother and her eleven nuns, and the rest of the audience, crowded closer to Panzano, then sat down on the deck.
