Thoreau Bound, page 42
“You know that for twenty years, Kosmos has been dreaming of finding a paradise on Crete.”
“Do I know it! He dreams of paradise and ignores Penelope.”
“This morning, Penelope, I had an intuition that the paradise that Kosmos has been looking for is sitting on his favorite spot, the beautiful beach he calls his kaliparalea. And since a paradise found becomes a paradise lost — that’s the paradox of paradise — this utopian community meets in the evenings after midnight, then breaks up at every dawn, before the light. What do you think?”
Penelope slapped my back as she laughed.
“Now I understand why you and Kosmos get along so well. You two imagine something impossible, then believe in it with more passion than something real.”
“You’ll be late for work if you come with me, Penelope.”
“I’m coming,” she said. “I want to see what nobody has seen before. And if there’s nothing to see, then you’ll need some shoulders to cry on. ... Or something soft underneath the shoulders.”
Walking briskly, we reached the beach at Agia Souvlakis, turned east, walked one mile on the sand, then found the kaliparalea, the beautiful beach. Earlier in the day I had built a thigh-high stone wall here, and now Penelope and I stood at the wall, ready to crouch down behind it if anyone arrived.
Lovely evening! The sea dances against the beach sand as the night’s stars sing silent songs that guide our tender souls toward the sublime.
“A fine paradise, Thoreau!” said Penelope. “Stars, sand, sea, silence and solitude — not one person around for miles.”
“Patience, Penelope,” I said. “Patience. You know that Zen saying: ‘Until the Buddha comes, live as if the Buddha is here’. ... Ouch! Ouch!”
Penelope had pinched my bottom, two times. Now she wrapped her shawl around me and snuggled closer, like a spider spinning silk around a fly.
“Why did you bring me out here, alone, Thoreau?”
“Penelope, it’s not — ”
“You wanted to seduce me!”
“Penelope!” She clutched me tight.
“Opportunity knocks you up but once! Don’t miss this chance, Thoreau. Come back home with me and let’s enjoy each other. I’ll show you a paradise, the only one you’ll ever need!”
I knew the saying: ‘Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.’ ... Thanks to practice, I was as good as any man at refusing a woman who offered herself. The trick, I thought, was to refuse her without hurting her feelings or wounding her feminine pride. I was as good as any man at this — unfortunately, at this subtle art, all men are lousy.
“Penelope,” I said calmly. “We have agreed to have a platonic relationship, from the neck upwards.”
“I have thought about that, darling,” answered Penelope. “Let’s stand on our heads and then make love!”
“Penelope,” I said. “There is a deep bond of affection between us. You bring out the best in me — ”
“You bring out the beast in me!” she shouted. Furiously she kissed me and then she reached down to seize my manhood with her hand.
“It’s like a rock! Come home and sex me up, Thoreau! That old buzzard Kosmos will never know about it!”
The aroma of a Greek restaurant suddenly stifled the fresh seashorey air. A deep voice, brash and good-humored, rushed across our ears like the waves of seafingers slapping the face of the sandy shore.
“Scratch him on the belly, Penelly,” said the voice. “Those scratches would put a six-thousand year-old mummy in the mood for love.”
I looked up. Penelope dropped the flashlight that had filled her grasping hand. Slowly, she turned around.
“Kosmos!” she shouted, as she ran to his open arms. “Kosmos, darling!”
She hugged him with all the power of a woman wild with love.
“Is this the dream of my dreams, or are we awake in each other’s arms?”
“I am here, I am free, I am a man again,” said Kosmos with a bold laugh. “Free to say that you, my faithful Penelope, look divine this evening under the starlight. Don’t stare like you’ve never seen me before: buzz this old buzzard with a kiss.”
The kiss lasted a full minute, and when Kosmos came up for air he glanced at me and smiled.
“It’s good to see you, Thoreau! I knew you would be here tonight — every iota of my intuition told me so. Come closer, my boy, so I can see you better.”
Kosmos and Penelope together embraced me like a son.
“What’s wrong, Thoreau?” said Kosmos. “Here we are all together again — and on the doorstep of our paradise, too! Yet there’s a spoonful of sadness stirred into your cup of joy. Tell me about it: it will make it easier to bear.”
“Kosmos, it’s a miracle to see you here! It’s not a cup of joy, it’s a barrel and a vat. But the sadness is a heartful, enough to make the whole world sad. I fell in love with the best and most beautiful woman on earth, and she fell out of love with me. I will never forget her, and I will never see her again.”
A scent of spearmint spiced the atmosphere as a silken voice whispered sweetly from the darkness, above the gentle kissing of the sea.
“Men!” said the lovely voice. “Men are either too mellow, or too melodramatic. Men are helpless because they love women in their imaginations. Will men ever learn that real love means courage, responsibilities and deeds?”
“Beatrice!” shouted Penelope and Kosmos.
I stood stunned, astonished, thunderstruck.
Penelope ran to Beatrice, and the two women embraced, kissed cheeks, then began chatting and laughing uncontrollably.
“Thoreau, dearest,” said Beatrice. “Penelope tells me that despite her best efforts, she was never able to seduce you. Have you lost all interest in lovemaking?”
As she stepped closer to me — her hips swaying with every step — the thousand thousand stars above seemed like they were spinning into brightly-colored swirls. Her flowing gown, made from a British flag, teased with a neckline that plunged all-the-way to the rope-belt around her slender waist. Her body was fit for a goddess: svelte, curvy, voluptuous. Her eyes captured my eyes. My heart had never felt as breathlessly alive as this: it had been plucked from my breast then dipped still-beating into the cold sea, awash in the most perfect sorrow and happiness.
“Beatrice,” I murmured, softly, gently, reverently. “I lost interest in other women when I fell in love with you.”
“Dearest,” said Lady Loverly, “remember this. There are two kinds of women: the women who you chase after, and the women who chase after you. If you want to find happiness in love, slow down.”
“Beatrice, I fell in love with you at the Meteora, the first moment I saw you.”
“Young Thoreau. You never cared for me: you fell in love with the idea and the ideal of Love.”
“Beatrice! I did love you and I do love you! And I will always love you! I swear it!”
The beautiful woman smiled more, and the smile made her more beautiful.
“It’s a mere crush, darling, and it will pass with a little discomfort, like after-dinner gas. Do you know how I cured my infatuation for you? ... I began a new diet and exercise regimen devoted to the Roman saying, mens sana in corpore sano: a sound mind in the sexiest body on Earth. For hours every day I exercised; I ate the healthiest foods only; I threw myself into the heart of work. And work is what brings me to Crete tonight, in case you were wondering. WANDERBORE received a letter stating that there were ten gypsy women hiding on this island, fugitives from the law, without any resources, shelter, or friends.”
My own words chilled me like crushed ice.
“And at last you’re here in front of me, one heart away, and without your affection it is as lonely as if between us an Atlantic ocean lies.”
Penelope grasped my forearm, then tried to tug me closer to Beatrice.
“Don’t give up on her, Thoreau! Trust me: I know her like I know my own sister, like my own self! In ten million years she will never stop loving you!”
Kosmos shook his head.
“Hell, Thoreau, you’re not a man anymore! One glance at that woman and you’re all jelly and mush! Listen to me. Your chances of winning her are one in ten, but I guarantee that you will lose her if you act like a lovesick lamb. Begin the affair by worshiping the ground she walks on, and the woman will end the affair by grinding you into the mud beneath her pointed heels.”
Penelope clutched me.
“Listen to the squawking of the cynical old bird! Ignore him, Thoreau! Do what your heart desires. Clasp your arms around her knees then tell her that you love her like you’ve never loved before!”
Kosmos placed his hand on Penelope’s shoulder.
“You can’t force someone to love you, Penelope: the love is there, or the love is not there and that’s the end. Can’t you see that she’s finished with him, and wants to move on with her life?”
“They are perfect for each other!” Penelope shouted. “They are like Greek salad and olive oil.”
“They are olive oil and water,” said the man. “They will fight like that dog Kosmos and that cat Penelope!”
Penelope raised her right arm.
“You wouldn’t know what love is,” she shouted, “if it slapped you in the face!”
Kosmos grabbed her threatening hand. Now he was shouting, too.
“And you are an expert in the love-business of everybody else — except your own!”
Penelope raised her left arm, and when Kosmos grabbed it she shouted more.
“An expert? You think that you’re an expert in the sex-business, but your love-organ wilts like a stalk of boiled celery! A couple of shakes is all it takes!”
The face of Kosmos turned radish-red.
“No man in Greece makes love like I make love!” he proudly said.
“Thank the goddesses for that!” Penelope yelled. “Or all the women in Greece would give up sex forever and become nuns!”
Beatrice stepped between the stir-crossed lovers, then calmly placed her left hand on Kosmos, and her right hand upon Penelope.
“My dear friends,” she said. “Let us be silent so we may hear the whispers of the gods.”
Silence instantly enchanted the evening air.
The four of us ducked behind my wall and then peered through the open cracks between the stones. We saw lights from the tips of wooden torches; we listened to soft footsteps pattering against the sand.
43
The Midnight Players
As if the stars themselves descended to the Earth to taste its bitterest sorrows and sweetest joys, the night-scene was lit by slowly-moving torches burning bright. Heads covered by hoods and bodies by monk-black robes, a crowd assembled on the perfect beach. Silently they worked, spreading blankets on the sand, weighing down the blankets with crocks of food, building a campfire from driftwood, branches, and sticks. A torch tossed into the center of the teepee-shaped wood set the campfire blazing. The sixty-odd women and men removed their robes. Now dressed in loosely-fitting white chitons, they gathered in a circle around their leader, who first raised his right arm to get attention, and then spoke in a voice made of equal parts of strength, humor, and tenderness.
“Love is all we have
the only way that each
can help the other.”
They called their leader ‘Pateras’. When Kosmos and I recognized this old man’s voice and face, our first impulse was to rush out of hiding, and pummel him with questions and questions more. But Penelope, by squeezing our arms with her strong hands, kept her two men watching, silently and still.
Pateras placed his right hand over his heart.
“Love and be wise,” he said, in his deep and resonating voice.
“Be wise and love,” the crowd in unison replied.
“It looks like we’re missing someones tonight,” Pateras said. “If you’re not here, raise your hand.”
Some hands raised, some voices laughed, and then Pateras spoke again.
“Where is our oldest member, Chronos? ... And where is Hera, queen of our hive, the beautiful body who inspires us to be beautiful in our souls?”
When not one voice replied, Pateras began to sing.
“Penelopee, Penelopee ... as sweet as ripe canteloupee ...”
The eyes of astonished Kosmos gleamed and his jaw dropped open wide as Penelope stepped forward from behind the wall, out of the darkness into the circle of light.
“You’re not dressed for play, Penelope,” said Pateras. “And you’re late tonight.”
“I’m late?” said Penelope. “What time is it?”
The crowd murmured, but Pateras raised his hand and immediately the chattering ceased.
“Time for our greatest performance,” the wise old man replied.
Working together, Pateras and Penelope first unscrolled a banner made from a white sheet that had been wrapped around two cane-shaped sticks of wood, and then they pressed the sticks into the sand, so that the banner became visible to all.
The Midnight Players —
A Troupe of Actors and Singers
Performing Classical Drama and Songs
A man dressed as a priest — shouting with an anger which had forgotten that the true gods are compassionate not cruel — shook his bony fist as he rushed toward the flickering campfire.
“Sinners! Sinners repent!” he shouted. “Let every one fly out of Sodom! Haste and escape for your lives! Look not behind you, escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!”
Pateras patted the shoulders of the intolerant man.
“Priestos,” said Pateras. “Men like you, who wake up every morning before the chickens, should not be carousing or reforming at this hour of the night. How can we help you?”
“I have heard a rumor,” said the rasping voice of the god-terrifying old priest, “that the dramas you perform here, under the midnight sin, are festered with violence and immorality.”
Pateras found a wooden crate for the old priest to sit on, then he patiently replied.
“And the stories in your own bible are nothing but peace and gentleness? ... Priestos, do not condemn us until you have watched us play. In our dramas, like all the performances in ancient Greece, the violence is never shown to the audience. Violent actions are always reported by minor characters or by messengers.”
“The violence is never shown?” said Priestos. “Then that leaves more time for the immorality! Do you strip the gods naked, and poke their fun at the sacred temples of the goddesses?”
“Sit down here, Priestos,” said Pateras. “Sit down and watch us play.”
Pateras raised a Zeusian thunderbolt, forged from aluminum foil.
“Tonight,” he said, “we will be performing a selection from The Symposium, by Plato. Is Appollodorus ready? ... Aristophanes? ... Agathon? ... Socrates? ... ”
The actors and actresses scrambled to their places, and then the drama’s narrator, Penelope, stepped to the forefront, holding a brightly-colored tropical bird. Penelope’s acting voice was practiced, polished, and precise.
“Symposium, tonight we play,
And after watching us rehearse.
This parrot has been heard to say:
Polly — ”
“Polymorphously perverse!”
Out from the shadows jumped Kosmos, who had finished the rhyme with a notion of his own.
Kosmos approached his father Pateras, seized the foil-wrapped lightning bolt, tore it in half and then flung it to the sand.
“This is all lies, lies, lies!” shouted Kosmos. “This is not a troupe of actors, this is a community of highly-organized anarchy and love-free sex.”
Pateras laughed, placed his hand onto his son’s shoulder, and then spoke with the greatest calm.
“Kosmos, everywhere you look you see sexuality, even amidst a gathering of tired and retired old women and old men! Penelope here is forty years young — the youngest of our troupe — and the next youngest is ten years older than Penelope. What evidence makes you believe that we have gathered here for erotic escapades, and not for the education, the pleasures, and the self-awareness that are the rewards of practicing the creative arts?”
“Evidence?” said Kosmos. “My intuition is all the evidence I need!”
“Your Intuition?” Pateras replied. “Many men have followed their intuition where it led them to the greatest follies and atrocities.”
“That is true, dear father,” said Kosmos. “And it is also true that some men have followed their intuition to the stars. The great books, works of art and music, and scientific discoveries have all begun with intuition’s magic spark.”
Pateras smiled into his son’s defiant eyes.
“And how have you and your intuition, Kosmos, learned at last to distinguish the artificial from the real?”
“In Athens, a while back, Father,” said Kosmos, “I was strolling through the art museum, when my eyes were captured by a reproduction of Leonardo’s painting, the Mona Lisa. Her five-hundred-year-old face intrigued me. Oh, the smile, the famous smile was perfect. But something about the painting bothered me, so every morning I came back to study it.
“Hundreds, yes thousands of people looked at that painting and didn’t see the problem there. But I knew it, and I came back to look, day after day. I studied that enigmatic smile, I studied the full bosom, I studied those hands — the most beautifully drawn hands in all of Italian art.”
“And what did you find, Kosmos?” asked Penelope.
“One dawn when I woke up, I grasped the answer. The smile was reproduced precisely, but what had made me squirm about that painted woman was her ordinary eyes. In the imitation painting in Athens, Mona Lisa’s eyes stared straight ahead. In the real painting, the original, Mona’s eyes are gazing to her left. One subtle difference that makes all the difference in the universe! One slight shift ... It’s just as Dostoyevsky wrote: If we could simply open our hearts to the depths of human kindness, in mere minutes we could change this suffering Earth into a laughter-loving paradise.”
