God of Hunger Page 2

  As a boy, KK had little time for religion but, like most islanders found the long Sunday service a boon chance for the exchange of news and gossip. Participation in the liturgy came naturally and automatically; everyone knew the order of service by heart but not by mind. The Classics were another matter. The philosophers and dramatists were exercised with deep understanding even when recited from memory. KK could from an early age recall the Iliatha. It was understood by him to be about what we would now call male bonding. Accordingly, the world was set as a stage for men to act upon, each swearing allegiance to comradeship in arms whilst reaching for the lone status of a hero.

  Women were venerated as mothers, tolerated as sisters or wives and fought over as trophies should they be identified as such in comparison to other prizes such as a heifer or an iron tripod in ancient times or a caique in the near present of KK’s youth or a good rifle later on in his life in Africa.

  How he yearned for a boat of his own on his expeditions to the bay across the harbour of Hios; the bay of Tsesme. What drew him there were the wrecks of the Turkish fleet sunk in 1770 by a ‘search and destroy’ mission sent out by Katherinee, the Great Empress of Orthodox Russia.

  Few islanders had the courage to dive for treasure in the shallows closer to Turkey than Greece. Indeed, not many had precise knowledge of it. KK had both.

  His interest in local history had come to Count Argenti’s attention for two reasons. Firstly, Argenti was forever working on a history of Hios and had a ready ear open for new information concerning the island. And secondly, as the Governor of the only school on the island, he was given reports of the academic progress of its pupils only to find KK at the top of every list.

  The boy was invited to visit the big house and was questioned by the Count on various aspects of learning which confirmed the reports he was getting from the school; Kokopoulos, J.K., was extremely bright. And so began a pedagogic relationship by which the boy visited the Count after church each Sunday to exchange views about the text lent and read over the previous week. And so it was that the history of the world centred on Hios became an open book to the boy who impressed the Count on other subjects too.

  The mastiha trees at the top end of the estate always furnished less gum than the average yield. This was because they grew along a ridge raised above the plain and in that position were more vulnerable to desiccation over the summer months. KK’s father often reported on the Count’s concern about these trees. Wishing to repay his lordships kindness to him, KK gave the matter much thought and came up with a solution after a year’s experimentation. He had observed that unkempt trees in peasant gardens higher up in Monastir appeared in better shape than the Count’s marginal rows. Could it be that the piles of stones that littered the un-harrowed ground around the less cared for trees held the answer to the problem of desiccation?

  The boy requested the Count that he allow his father to place gravel around the base of each tree along the ridge. This was done and the following year’s yield of gum had risen significantly from these rows; the gravel kept the moisture around the roots.

  It was then that the Count took an even greater interest in the boy, suggesting to his father that he, the Count, would send KK abroad for further education, having in mind a college in Damascus ran by a German order of monks. They provided a well-rounded general education and the opportunity to specialise in practical disciplines of which farming in a dry climate was one in which the college had developed a far reaching reputation.

  When put to KK, the proposal was not welcomed. He had not thought of his own future and resented others, however well meaning, to plan it on his behalf. So one evening he stole out of Hios town and crossed the bay to Anatolia, one nautical mile away, in a dilapidated skiff which had long been beached at one end of the harbour.

  The crossing started well but gradually the boat filled with sea-water and half way across sank, leaving the boy to swim the rest of the way. It was not that he found it arduous to do so but would have preferred a drier landing at his destination at the village of Katopanaya, a kilometre and a half south east of Tsesme.

  Katopanaya was a village inhabited entirely by his country men who had originally come from Pontus to cultivate virgin land around the Mother of God, above and below:

  Anopanaya and Katopanaya, two ancient chapels, one on a hill and the other by the sea.

  Between massacres, the last had occurred on Hios in 1822 and the next was to come in Smyrna in 1921, life for Greeks in Turkish hands was safe and largely self regulated. Provided taxes were paid and first-born sons offered up for military service when required by the Sultan, Hellenic communities got on with their lives unmolested. But woe betide an occurrence out of the ordinary which could cast doubt and suspicion in the official mind.

  KK’s nocturnal adventure roused the ire of the village elders. They did not want the authorities on their backs at a time of high alert with talk of war after the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince at Sarajevo earlier that week. The boy could be mistaken for a spy and to harbour such would endanger them all. The elders weighed the matter up. Was the protection of a fellow Greek runaway whose presence would not go unnoticed by the local Muhtar worth risking all? Clearly not.

  The next day KK was led to the Muhtar’s office in Tsesme castle and there handed over to be dealt with by him whilst during the same night as KK’s arrival in Katopanaya, word crossed the bay to Hios in the boat of a Katopanayousee fisherman, such that Count Argenti’s pleas on behalf of the boy were already in the hands and pockets of the Muhtar.

  The Turk twirled his moustache and struck a pose of bellicose authority without uttering a word. He dismissed the elders with a swing of his right hand and indicated with his left to the sentry that the boy should be led into the cell. There he was left to contemplate his fate in fear of dire punishment until the door was opened at dawn of the second day of his incarceration. He was led out of the castle, across the square and onto the quayside where Argenti’s motor launch was moored. Without a word being said, he was escorted aboard, his manacles removed, and left among friends who took him back to the island.

  A large bribe apart, Argenti had assured the Muhtar that KK would be sent away to college in Damascus where he would also be under the watchful eye of Turkish authority.

  *

  All that was about to change. The Ottoman Empire became an ally of the Central Powers and when the Great War ended, it was broken up into its constituent parts which became new nation states exercising various degrees of autonomy within a supposed new world order headed by the United States and the Soviet Union but still under the sway of the victorious European empires: Belgian, British, Dutch and French.

  The ending of the war in 1918 coincided with KK’s graduation from college. He emerged well rounded and grounded; trained as an agronomist and educated in arts and languages.

  Throughout his five years in Damascus he kept up a regular correspondence with his Hian mentor, Count Argenti. Between regularly stated assumptions that KK would return to the island and take over the management of his estates, Argenti kept the young man abreast of his writing.

  Whilst KK was in college the Count had published Massacres of Hios describing the holocaust of 1822 and was now working on an account of the wars of Greek independence extracts of which he would include in his letters to KK. This material fascinated the young man but neither the promise of a well paid job on the land nor access to the library at the big house would draw him back to Hios.

  KK sensed greater opportunities in the brave new world opening up before his very eyes in the Near East. On graduating, top of his year, the young man was offered a teaching post at his college but left after a year to seek his fortune in Egypt where he arrived in the spring of 1919.

  His journey from Damascus took him first to Jerusalem and then to Alexandria, via Gaza.

  Alexandria was the appropriate entrepot for a Greek into Africa. It was still very much a Hellenic town with the grande
st Greek community on the continent, seat to a Patriarchate with dominion over Africa, embellished with Greek schools and colleges, hospitals and theatres. And kaffenia throughout the centre of town, clustered around the ancient harbour where once stood the Pharos and much else long known but destroyed like the great Library and unknown but very much alive in the minds of Alexandrians such as Alexander’s tomb and the palace of his pharaonic successors. And then there was Kafavy the first of the Moderns whom T.S.Eliot emulated and with whom E.M. Forster copulated.

  But it was neither the Classical past nor the Modernist present that made a living for the Alexandrian Greeks. It was cotton, grown on the alluvial soil of the delta deposited and watered by the Nile that was Alexandria’s rich sustenance. KK was clearly interested in its cultivation and he sought out the great cotton masters like Salvago and Benaki to ask whether or not opportunities in growing the fibre existed for one like him. ‘Only as an eepalilos (employee) otherwise try the Sudan; land in Egypt is not for sale to new arrivals.’

  A disappointed KK left Alexandria for Cairo and, out of necessity, found employment with the Hellenic Enterprise Company (HEC). In a short space of time he made his mark as the most able clerk at head office and found himself being groomed for a role in management.

  In this capacity he was invited to attend, as the firm’s representative, at many important social functions and it was at one such occasion that he fell prey to the charms of Lady X, the mistress to the head of British intelligence.

  KK was not warned off the affair but was warned by his bosses not to divulge company secrets to Cairo’s loveliest femme fatale whilst being encouraged to develop relations with his part-time lover for the sake of the business; on her arm he had entree to the highest social gatherings in Cairo. Not disappointing his employers, the suave young man’s suaveness was rewarded by rapid promotion to the office of the Chairman’s personal cabinet.

  KK, groomed for the high life in Cairene society never lost his head to its many diversions, taking instead personal advantage of contacts within the cultivated elite.

  His erudite lover taught him a great deal of the ways of the world. And also of ancient history, an interest he had cultivated in Hios and in Syria. Outside her bed-chamber Lady X was a world-authority on the ancient civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean.

  Apres l’amour one afternoon, KK fell to browsing through the books on her bedside table. He leant back to face her and enquired about the contents of the thinnest book in the pile.

  ‘My darling, it is the oldest story in the world. Gilgamesh was a great person ruling at Uruk, in Sumer, in Mesopotamia, in ancient Iraq. Through his journeys and feats Gilgamesh gained the reputation of one above all other men. For a time he thought of himself as a god. Yet he came to realize that the immortality he had hoped for was impossible and returned from his searching to his city and resigned himself to the inevitability of death. Hamurabi, of whom we know a great deal more, did likewise. A great man who built a great empire. And in building the walls of Babylon with bricks bearing his name he clearly thought of immortality. But when his job was done he resigned himself to death. He showed no fear when he died. His servants, preparing his body for the funeral, found an amulet on the floor of his bedchamber. It was of Gilgamesh overpowering a buffalo. You see, Hamurabi was a great huntsman. He compared himself to Gilgamesh; hunter and creator. That is how he wanted to remembered amongst his own people. As God.’

  Our Ancient Greek Gods must have inspired him.

  ‘Not so my darling boy. Babylonian Gods are older than yours.’

  ‘Older than Homer’s? (He had learnt to anglicize Omeeros in Anglophone company. ‘We Greeks were the very first thinkers and writers. The first post-barbarians.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you my darling but even on that score you are mistaken.’

  She told him of the latest finds on the islet of Salamina where the palace of Ajax had just been accounted for and in whose bay indeed lay the wrecks of Xerxes’s ambitions. The historical value of Homer’s verse and the prose of Herodotus was confirmed with each passing season. But what was new to the world was that archaeologists working on the island’s acropolis were reported to have found traces of human organic matter on and beneath its base; evidence enough to suggest that earlier temples and the temple to Athena may have been a place of barbaric rites.

  ‘The question is, my dear boy, could it have been a site for the ritual murder of humans?

  ‘Are you saying that Greeks were barbarians?’

  She laughed as she said, ‘I’m afraid so.’

  KK took badly to the statement. He got out of bed and got dressed and was about to go out without a word when she declared her love for him and suggested they immediately leave Cairo for Alexandria there to be alone together.

  He melted to her declaration of love and to the prospect of a few hours out of Cairo.

  That evening in Alexandria they went for a stroll along the Corniche in the direction of Montaza. Hunger overtook them when they got to King Farouk’s palace which was shuttered. There was no restaurant or bistro to be found. Just a fisherman’s charcoal burning brazier serving up grilled slices of octopus. A drink of arak was obtained from a small shop, the only one open. Neither shop keeper nor al fresco chef replied to their attempts at conversation. It was a twilight lacking in joie de vivre. A quietude both found unnerving.

  At last there was a sound to break the monotony of their repast; the doleful sound of a church bell. They left the corniche and headed uphill toward the cross showing above the cupola above the surrounding roof tops.

  They entered the church to find it full of worshipers. Women on the left and men on the right. Refusing to be parted KK and Lady X stood at the back crossing themselves at points in the priest’s intonation only he understood, whilst all the while an assistant priest waved the censor billowing with smoky incense; first at each icon in the screen behind the altar then at the congregation.

  The Papas deap bass was joined by the three tenor voices to his left who swept prayer and smoke up into the dome where Christ Pantocrator received with unmoving eyes the scene of devotion beneath.

  The depth of His gaze, the severity of His face, the company of His unsinging angels told of the risen Christ in mourning. For his people below.

  Byzantine frescoes and mosaics did not allow the lightness in which the artists of the Western renaissance portrayed God in Heaven. There was none of Giotto’s blue wash as background to the Angelic host adoring Mother and Child which inspired sinners to seek repentance through familiar prayer aimed at the beguiling, light shedding Dove, central in the décor of Heaven. A feminine décor. A forgiving décor.

  Not so by the artists of the Eastern naissance. Here the child Jesus was never a babe in arms. More a miniaturized portrait of the man charged from birth to deliver judgement over mankind. His mood always sombre even when lit by the sheen of gold leaf and the sparkle of gemstones.

  Under the judgemental Deity, the couple allowed themselves to surrender to the service. And when it ended, left only when obliged to move out of the church by the swelling crowd heading for the portico. In the gloaming outside, KK asked, the passers-by to account for the memorial service; midweek and mournful.

  Eventually an elderly man said, ‘A mneemoseeno for the old man.’

  ‘What old man?’

  ‘The holy man. Our hermit. Do you see that distant hill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He lived in a cave up there. And prayed each day. Throughout the day. Asking God for forgiveness.’

  ‘What had he done that merited such an existence and constant prayer?’

  ‘Ah, my dear. As a young man he, like many others emigrated to America. Like them, in retirement, he returned to his city. But unlike the rest who spoke only about the glory of the New Rome, New York, he said nothing but anathema to the place. There he saw and heard things which he believed offended God. So he took to his cave and gave penance for all the sins he had witne
ssed.’

  ‘A Saint?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Lady X asked the old man, ‘Will we go to heaven?’

  ‘For you two, I think it is here on earth.’

  *

  Calmed by the experiences of the evening in Alexandria equilibrium in feelings about each other returned to KK and Lady X. They walked back to the Corniche along a street of large villas and booked into the Cecil Hotel for the night which further repaired the frayed bond of feeling between them. In the morning they returned to Cairo.

  There Lady X suggested a week’s pause from lust while she returned to the Chief of British intelligence.

  KK knew his place in the order of her life and showed only faked signs of remorse at separation, knowing full well that she would return to him with fresh news and gossip and the occasional morsel of hard information he could report to the Chairman.

  In time KK came to know from Lady X much of what passed between the Chief Political Officer at GHQ, Middle East Command, Cairo, and London. And Paris. And Constantinople, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Damascus, Beyrut and New Delhi.

  This information was as precious as gold to the head of the Cairene business community who had been watching the fate of the Ottoman Empire with increasing interest since the Allied victory in 1918. He well understood the value of inside knowledge at a time when into the political maelstrom of the post war world were cast the protagonists of the modern age.