Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance Page 3

  At some hour in that endless night we pulled up at an unlikely all-night garage to fill up with that foul-smelling Yugoslav petrol. The attendant, emerging from the warmth of his office, pointed immediately to the front wheel. Not another puncture, I thought bitterly. It was something worse: one of the front shock absorbers was hanging on by a single bolt and dragging along the surface.

  Deborah made a brief inspection and straightened, undismayed, with the information that a six-inch nail would fix it. My own contribution to the subsequent proceedings was to produce a suitable nail from the attendant who then joined me in his office while Deborah lay prone in the snow under the front suspension and aunt curled up in her furs in the back.

  I was a little worried that the girl might freeze to death but she emerged after about ten minutes to announce calmly that we would continue. It was the beginning of a deepening respect, confirmed by later events, for her guts and practical resources.

  The Danube was far from blue when we rolled into Belgrade to learn that the Yugoslav New Year would begin in half an hour – at midnight. We could see little point in celebrating another new year within two weeks of the first one. There was only one event we wanted to celebrate – the arrival in Athens.

  A check on the speedometer revealed that the car had covered nearly 2,000 miles since leaving London. This was more or less the total distance from London to Athens and there was still a long way to go. But we shared a feeling that we were now out of the wilderness, that the snow-blocked passes were all behind us and that it was tarmac, tarmac all the way to the Mediterranean and the sun.

  The snow had been with us all the way from the Rhine but when, the next morning, we came out on the great sunlit plain of Larissa we rejoiced at the prospect of finding, at last, Mediterranean weather. But it was snowing again that night when our ancient vehicle found herself, almost suddenly, surrounded by the unaccustomed and disconcerting traffic of downtown Athens.

  Later we celebrated with extravagant whiskies and got a little drunk. It wasn’t exactly a happy occasion. There was an underlying unease not only at the thought of the end of an adventure but at the end of an association. When one male and two females are enclosed together in a small mobile space for most of twenty-four hours for all of fifteen days some sort of relationship is bound to develop. Circumstance and event had thrown us, three diverse humans, into a contiguity as intimate as marriage. Diversity was, of course, most pronounced in our differing ages. I was fifty-five, Auntie was forty-something and Deborah was twenty-three. None of us was virginal, none of us was impotent and all of us had healthy natural instincts. These things become apparent intuitively without question or investigation.

  It was a situation which might have had complex and alarming results except that Auntie clearly considered her role to be that of chaperone and saw to it that there were never fewer than three of us alone together for any length of time. It was equally clear that, like a lot of chaperones I have known, she didn’t particularly want to be chaperoned herself.

  Fifty-five is a difficult and dangerous age for a man. In my own case I surprised myself by regarding any woman over forty as too old for further consideration: a tribute surely to innocence and ignorance. But I also had this conscience thing about Deborah being much too young for an old bastard like me so I ended up taking no interest in either of them. It would be dishonest of me to say that the thought of going to bed with them did not enter my mind. Conscience and lack of opportunity can be powerful allies in the war of seduction.

  When Deborah came to my room before breakfast on the second day in Athens I knew something unusual was afoot. It was known that I intended, under economic pressure, to hurry on to Sparta by bus that day. She looked a little flustered.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve just told Auntie I’ve decided to stay on in Greece.”

  “But you’re supposed to go back with her.”

  “I know. I’ve changed my mind. I’m over twenty-one and I’ve made that quite clear to her. She’s flying back in a fury this afternoon. She, er, thinks it’s probably your fault.”

  “What the hell have I got to do with it?”

  “That’s just what I said. This is my own decision for my own reasons.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “She asked me that too. The answer to them would be the same as my answer to Auntie. I’m not dependent on them. All the same I’m glad they’re not here to argue.”

  “So what are you going to do? What are you going to use for money when you run out?”

  “Well, I’ll find work in Athens. There are lots of foreign girls teaching English and German and French here. Or babysitting. I found that out yesterday.”

  “Well, good luck to you.”

  “We must keep in touch. How will I know where you are?”

  “I’ll write to you at Poste Restante here.”

  In Athens, I parted from my traveling companions and bought a bus ticket for twenty shillings.

  Seven hours later I reached the end of the road, literally, in a small village at the foot of a mountain in the Peloponnese. For twenty-six years that peninsula had beckoned me like the finger of Fate.

  Chapter 2

  Rich Beyond the Potency of Wealth

  Anogia had not changed very much. It had electric light now but that was more of a change for the people than for the town.

  And the mayor had not changed very much except that he was no longer mayor and he was twenty-six years older. I spent my first night in his home, listening to the endless reminiscence of war and the echoes of 1941.

  But mine was no pilgrimage to ancient battlefields. I had written to my friend explaining my mission and my needs. At the first opportunity – provided by lack of mutually comprehensible vocabulary – I asked about the chances of finding a place to live in.

  “I have found you one,” he said, delighted at the pleasure this news would provide.

  “You have! Where? Whose? How far? How much?”

  “It is here in Anogia. A fine big house. It belongs to the doctor. You can live in it.”

  I tried hard to conceal the disappointment. But it had to be said now before I became imprisoned in their generosity and good will and my own gratitude.

  “That’s wonderful, terrific. But Nick, as I told you in my letter, my house must be near the sea. It is part of… part of the dream.”

  “I don’t know anything about the sea,” he said, his elation at shared pleasure wilting slightly, “but if you want the doctor’s house you can have it.”

  We called on the doctor the next morning. It was a fine big house. And there were orange and lemon trees in full fruit in the garden. I could pick them from the bedroom window. But it was not by the sea and it did not have a beach for beachcombing.

  I asked if I could stay there until I found what I was seeking. The doctor said I could stay there until I found heaven and practically moved into the servants’ quarters so that I could have full run of the place. He refused to consider offers of payment.

  The second day after my return to Anogia, I walked down to the main road. Greece was a hitch-hiker’s paradise and three cars later I found myself at the end of a causeway running out to a great cliff of an island in the bay. I strolled over and ducked through an archway into the medieval world that is Monemvasia. I headed for the taverna.

  The proprietress was the sole occupant and she could speak no English. I invested in a half-litre of wine (it cost one shilling and nine pence) and waited for destiny to show up.

  It came in the persons of two young men who ordered coffee and were obviously well known to the woman-in-charge.

  “You speak English?” I asked.

  They nodded but not with any great confidence.

  “I am looking for a house by the sea. A hut would do. I want to write a book. Is there any chance of finding such a house?”

  That seemed to say everything. They consulted briefly together, shrugging.

  �
��There are lots of empty houses in Greece these days. You will not have much trouble.”

  “I have no money.” That was something else I’d better say quick.

  “That also is not a problem in Greece. Except in Monemvasia where even the price of ruins has gone up.”

  “I do not want to live in a town or village. I want isolation. You understand? By myself.”

  They held another quick conference. Then one turned to me and said casually: “If you want to be by yourself, why don’t you try the lighthouse?”

  “The lighthouse!” My heart leapt at the word.

  They explained that the original light had been replaced by an automatic device and that the house built for the keepers was deserted and used only by the shepherds to stable their sheep and goats. It was on the end of the island about 200 metres beyond the wall. I could not get there fast enough. There it stood, poised on the cliff edge, gleaming in the sunset like the Holy Grail.

  It was a three-roomed house and, though the doors and window-panes had long since gone, structurally sound. The doors were knee-deep in ashes and sheep droppings and it smelled accordingly. But in any room it felt like standing on the bridge of a ship sailing into a beautiful bay and from any window I could drop a fishing line straight down into the sea. I rushed back to the cafe.

  “What do I have to do before I can move in?” I asked the two men.

  “Well it is Government property. You’d better go to the harbour-master at Gythion and ask him.”

  The following day I would go to Gythion. I felt like celebrating. The two men could not join me but they told me there was an English family holidaying in the village.

  A woman guided me through the ancient intricacies of Monemvasia to the contemporary unreality of a Yorkshire farmer and his wife and four children living in blissful dishevelment and down to their last 100 drachmas.

  They were only a little worried about how they were going to get their Bedford van back to England via Yugoslavia without money for the petrol. After the second bottle of retsina it seemed a perfect solution to our joint problems. I gave them my superfluous Yugoslav dinars in exchange for a five-pound cheque.

  I had no idea how I was going to cash a cheque in Greece drawn on a bank in Scarborough. Nor did I care. I would soon be the owner (temporary) of an Aegean lighthouse. That was worth all the dinars in Yugoslavia.

  The harbour master at Gythion, who spoke English well enough to know that I wanted permission to live in the deserted lighthouse at Monemvasia, did his best. He got a call through to the Ministry of Marine at Athens, but, after twenty minutes of bureaucratic buck-passing, he put down the phone and said to me: “The answer is no!” Just like that. Then he added: “If you want to stay in a lighthouse, why don’t you stay in ours?”

  He detailed a naval rating to escort me to the end of a promontory at the entrance to the harbour. It was even better than Monemvasia. Unfortunately, the ground floor was occupied by a cafe. The hospitable, gregarious Greeks could not comprehend my desire to be alone and isolated.

  A little disconsolate but with undiminished faith, I went back to the main square. In this southern port the tables and chairs were already out in the warm spring sun and a goodly proportion of the male population, as in all Greek towns, was devoting the workless day to drinking coffee.

  My harbour-master was in conversation with a couple of men and when I joined them to explain why the lighthouse was unsuitable, another dozen or so came over to interest themselves in the proposition and to give as much helpful advice as possible. An elderly man said something which won universal approval and the harbour-master turned to me smiling and said: “He says if you want a house by the sea he has a spare one you can have.”

  I was beginning to learn to conceal astonishment at this form of spontaneous generosity.

  “Ask him how far it is from the sea,” I said.

  I did not need the interpreter to translate the old man’s “thirty metres”. I began to get excited.

  “How much would he like me to pay for it each month?”

  That brought a big laugh. There was much head-shaking and waving of hands in dismissal of the idea.

  “Ochi! Ochi! Nothing. Nothing.”

  He must have seen the delight in my face. I hope he got some reward from it. But after Monemvasia I was playing it cautious.

  “Will he be able to take me to see it today?” I asked the interpreter.

  After some discussion I was told to return to the square at one o’clock and he would take me to his own home to get the key and then down to the house on the beach. His own home turned out to be a substantial farm on which he had his own olive-pressing plant. He pointed to the word BLACKSTONE on the side of the stationary engine with some pride and said: “Engleesh, Engleesh”, and to the tractor which was a Massey-Ferguson. We drove down to the beach over what I was happy to see was an appalling road. The house was at the centre of a crescent stretch of sand against which the waves lapped gently.

  At either end was a rocky postcard peninsula. Behind the beach lay a fertile flat valley of orange, lemon and fig trees with cotton bushes still dotted whitely with left-over puffs of cotton wool. A rippling river carved a channel through the sand not one hundred yards from the house.

  Beyond the valley, the hills accumulated into an upheaval of near peaks escalating to the grandeur of the main range and the high snows. In front of the house, the deep blue of the Aegean filled the distance between the beach and the shores of Epidaurus; far to the south the mountains of the island of Kythira lifted over an indigo horizon.

  It was a visual experience to lift the heart and the spirit. The house itself, alas, did not sublimate the experience. It must have been a grand place in its heyday but when I saw it I couldn’t help thinking of the Parthenon with all the pillars collapsed. It was a gaunt though dignified skeleton. However, one room in the front was habitable – provided some pretty rapid repair work was done to the roof and ceiling, through which water was still dripping from the previous day’s rain and which looked in imminent danger of collapsing. The main living room was open to the sky, and a fine crop of nettles coming through the concrete floor reminded me that nettle-tops are reputed to make a palatable soup. And it was just under thirty metres from the sea.

  “Are there any fish in there?” I asked using every gesture in the fisherman’s vocabulary. He nodded enthusiastically and for good measure went down to the edge of the tide and scooped around in the wet sand until he scraped out a small shellfish, which, he indicated, would make good bait.

  I had no means of explaining my happiness or gratitude but he must have seen it in my face for he beckoned me to follow him back through the oranges and lemons (which he owned and large numbers of which he picked for me).

  We walked for 600 yards to a road at the foot of a steep hill. Halfway up it was a small square building with a flat roof. A disused path, guarded by thickets and carpets of extremely vicious weeds, led to a little platform before the house.

  He opened a padlock on the door and ushered me in. The clutter of rubbish on the floors of the two rooms and the smoke-blackened walls and ceilings did not conceal that this was a well-built place in good condition.

  He told me that this also belonged to him but this did not prepare me for his next gesture, in which he made it quite clear that I could have this too.

  I burst out laughing from sheer pleasure and incredulity. I wished that I could speak Greek to tell him of my feelings but doubted whether I ever could. Instead, I clasped his hand in both of mine. I think he understood.

  Before we went down to the car I climbed up on the roof and looked round my sunset domain. There were again no words available. I felt like a king. A penniless king but rich beyond the potency of wealth.

  Chapter 3

  An Enormous Contentment

  I knew what it meant to be out of this world.

  The first I knew of the upheaval in Greece was when I went up to the wine-shop one lunchtime for a threepen
ny glass of wine. Stavros told me that for two days the country had been under military dictatorship. He also warned me that I had to be indoors by six o’clock that evening or else “Boom-boom, you’re dead.”

  The same curfew deadline had apparently been in force the previous evening.

  But I had not been in my upstairs house at six; I was down at the beach watering the vegetable garden and did not get home until it was dark.

  I was surely not the only individual in all Greece who was unaware of the curfew and I paused to think of the many corpses littering the history of revolution as a result of simple and innocent ignorance of events.

  My own ignorance was indicative of some success in achieving the detachment I was seeking. I was virtually cut off from the world of news.

  This detachment was not altogether voluntary or contrived. The battery of the small portable radio which was a legacy of my journey to Greece had dwindled to silence. A new battery was not on my list of essential expenditure. Occasionally, after prolonged rest, it recuperated enough to allow me to catch the two minutes of news in English which Athens broadcasted morning and evening.

  Unfortunately, or fortunately, my watch dwindled to silent immobility at the same time as the radio. I did not miss its recurring theme of time passing… it grew light in the morning and I got up; it grew dark in the evening and I went to bed. I reckoned I could get within half an hour of the correct time by noting the position of the sun, but my methods were not accurate enough to know when it was exactly twenty minutes to eight, which was when the English news was broadcast. If I switched on too soon the battery was dead within three minutes. Naturally, I never knew whether I had switched on too late.

  I could state that being without knowledge of great events had made as little difference to my life as it had made to great events. It seemed to me that, once again, I had arrived somewhere – though I would not have liked to think that I could convince anybody that this was a good point at which to arrive.