The Corfu Trilogy Part 36

'Yes, I'm feeling a bit fragile myself,' said Larry, yawning and stretching.

'I feel as though I've been drowned,' said Max with conviction. 'Drowned in malmsey and then brought back by artificial inspiration.'

'Must you always ma.s.sacre the English tongue?' said Donald irritably. 'G.o.d knows it's bad enough having thousands of Englishmen doing it, without you foreigners starting.'

'I remember reading somewhere' began Theodore, who had awakened instantly, like a cat, and who, having slept like one, looked as immaculate as though he had not been to sleep at all 'I remember reading once that there's a tribe up in the mountains of Ceylon that speaks a language that n.o.body can understand. I mean to say, not even expert linguists have been able to understand it.'

'It sounds just like Max's English,' said Donald.

Under the influence of tea, b.u.t.tered toast, salt biscuits, watercress sandwiches, and an enormous fruit-cake as damp and as fragile and as rich-smelling as loam, we started to wake up. Presently we went down to the sea and swam in the warm waters until the sun sank and pushed the mountain's shadow over the beach suddenly, making it look cold and drained of colour. Then we went up to Stavrodakis' villa and sat under the bougainvillaea watching the sunset colours blur and mingle over the sea. We left Stavrodakis, who insisted on giving us a dozen great jars of his best wine to commemorate our visit, and made our way back to the benzina benzina.

As we headed out to sea we left the shadow of the mountain and came into the warm glow of the sun again, which was sinking, smudged blood-red behind the bulk of Pandokrator, casting a shimmering reflection across the water like a flaming cypress tree. A few tiny clouds turned pink and vine-yellow, then the sun dipped behind the mountain and the sky turned from blue to pale green and the smooth surface of the sea became for a brief moment all the magical colours of a fire-opal. The engine throbbed as we edged our way back towards the town, unrolling a white bale of lace wake behind us. Sven played the opening of 'The Almond Tree' very softly and everyone started to sing.

'She shook the flowering almond tree one sunny day With her soft little hands, The snowy blossoms on her breast and shoulders lay And in her hair's dark strands The snowy blossoms on her breast and shoulders lay And in her hair's dark strands...'

Spiro's voice, deep, rich, and smooth as black velvet, harmonizing with Theodore's pleasant baritone and Larry's tenor. Two flying fish skimmed up from the blue depths beneath our bow, skittered along the water, and were lost in the twilight sea.

Now it was getting dark enough to see the tiny green coruscations of phosphorus as our bow slid through the water. The dark wine glugged pleasantly from the earthenware pitchers into the gla.s.ses, the red wine that, last year, had lain snarling to itself in the brown barrels. A tiny wind, warm and soft as a kitten's paw, stroked the boat. Kralefsky, his head thrown back, his large eyes full of tears, sang at the velvet blue sky, shuddering with stars. The sea crisped itself along the sides of the boat with the sound of winter leaves, wind-lifted, rubbing themselves affectionately against the trunks of the trees that gave them birth.

'But when I saw my darling thus in snow arrayed, To her sweet side I sped.

I brushed the gleaming petals from each lock and braid, I kissed her and I said: I brushed the gleaming petals from each lock and braid, I kissed her and I said...'

Far out in the channel between Corfu and the mainland, the darkness was freckled and picked out with the lights of the fishing boats. It was as though a small section of the Milky Way had fallen into the sea. Slowly the moon edged up over the carapace of the Albanian mountains, at first red like the sun, then fading to copper, to yellow, and at last to white. The tiny wind-shimmers on the sea glittered like a thousand fish scales.

The warm air, the wine, and the melancholy beauty of the night filled me with a delicious sadness. It would always be like this, I thought. The brilliant, friendly island, full of secrets, my family and my animals round me and, for good measure, our friends. Theodore's bearded head outlined against the moon wanting only horns to make him Pan; Kralefsky crying unashamedly now like a black gnome weeping over his banishment from fairyland; Spiro with his scowling brown face, his voice becoming as richly vibrant as a million summer bees; Donald and Max, frowning as they endeavoured to remember the words of the song and harmonize at the same time. Sven, like a great ugly white baby, gently squeezing the soulful music from his ungainly instrument.

'Oh, foolish one, to deck your hair so soon with snow, Long may you have to wait; The dreary winter days when chilling north winds blow Do not antic.i.p.ate!

The dreary winter days when chilling north winds blow Do not antic.i.p.ate!'

Now, I thought, we were edging into winter, but soon it would be spring again, burnished, glittering, bright as a goldfinch; and then it would be summer, the long, hot, daffodil-yellow days.

'Oh, foolish one, to deck your hair so soon with snow, Long may you have to wait; The dreary winter days when chilling north winds blow Do not antic.i.p.ate!

The dreary winter days when chilling north winds blow Do not antic.i.p.ate!'

Lulled by the wine and the throbbing heart of the boat's engine, lulled by the warm night and the singing, I fell asleep while the boat carried us back across the warm, smooth waters to our island and the brilliant days that were not to be.

Epilogue.

Corfu is of such importance to me that its loss would deal a fatal blow to my projects. Remember this: in the present state of Europe, the greatest misfortune which could befall me is the loss of Corfu.

NAPOLEON

Mail LetterDear Mrs Durrell,It seems at last war can no longer be avoided and I think perhaps you were wise to leave Corfu. One can only hope that we can all meet in happier times when mankind has regained its senses. I will look forward to that.Should you wish to reach me, my address is c/o The Ionian Bank, Athens.I wish you and your family the very best of luck in the future.

Love to you all, Yours, Theodore PostcardMother,Have moved to Athens, so keep in touch. Place marvellous. Acropolis like pink flesh in the sun. Have sent my things to you. In a trunk marked '3' you will find book called An Evaluation of Marlowe. An Evaluation of Marlowe. Can you send it to me? Everyone here wearing tin hats and looking like war. Am buying myself large spear. Can you send it to me? Everyone here wearing tin hats and looking like war. Am buying myself large spear.

Love, Larry LetterDear Mother,I have had all my travellers' cheques pinched by some b.l.o.o.d.y Italian. They nearly arrested me because I punched him in the snoot. Give me the Greeks any day.Can you send some more money to me at the Magnifica Hotel, Plaza de Contina, Milan? Will be home soon. Don't worry.

Love, Les P.S. It looks like war, doesn't it?LetterDarling Mother,Just a hurried note to tell you I'm leaving on the boat on Monday so I should be in England in about three weeks.Things here are rather hectic, but what can you expect? It never rains but it snows. I think it's simply disgusting the way the Germans are carrying on. If I had my way I'd tell them.

Will see you soon.

Love to you, Margo P.S. I enclose a letter from Spiro. Most odd.LetterDear Missy Margo,This is to tell you that war has been declared. Don't tell a soul.

Spiro

The Garden of the G.o.ds

This book is for Ann Peters, at one time my secretary and always my friend, because she loves Corfu and probably knows it better than I do

Contents 1 DOGS, DORMICE, AND DISORDER.

2 GHOSTS AND SPIDERS.

3 THE GARDENOFTHE G.o.dS.

4 THE ELEMENTSOFSPRING.

5 FAKIRS AND FIESTAS.

6 THE ROYAL OCCASION.

7 THE PATHSOFLOVE.

8 THE MERRIMENT OF FRIENDSHIP.

1.

Dogs, Dormice, and Disorder The unspeakable Turk should immediately be struck out of the question.

CARLYLE That summer was a particularly rich one; it seemed as if the sun had drawn up a special bounty from the island for never had we had such an abundance of fruit and flowers, never had the sea been so warm and filled with fish, never had so many birds reared their young, or b.u.t.terflies and other insects hatched and shimmered across the countryside. Watermelons, their flesh as crisp and cool as pink snow, were formidable botanical cannonb.a.l.l.s, each one big enough and heavy enough to obliterate a city; peaches, as orange or pink as a harvest moon, loomed huge in the trees, their thick, velvety pelts swollen with sweet juice; the green and black figs burst with the pressure of their sap, and in the pink splits the gold-green rose beetles sat dazed by the rich, never-ending largesse. Trees had been groaning with the weight of cherries, so that the orchards looked as though some great dragon had been slain among the trees, bespattering the leaves with scarlet and wine-red drops of blood. The maize cobs were as long as your arm and as you bit into the canary-yellow mosaic of seeds, the white milky juice burst into your mouth; and in the trees, swelling and fattening themselves for autumn, were the jade-green almonds and walnuts, and olives, smoothly shaped, bright and shining as birds' eggs strung among the leaves.

Naturally, with the island thus a-burst with life, my collecting activities redoubled. As well as my regular weekly afternoon spent with Theodore, I now undertook much more daring and comprehensive expeditions than I had been able to before, for now I had acquired a donkey. This beast, Sally by name, had been a birthday present; and as a means of covering long distances and carrying a lot of equipment I found her an invaluable, if stubborn, companion. To offset her stubbornness she had one great virtue; she was, like all donkeys, endlessly patient. She would gaze happily into s.p.a.ce while I watched some creature or other or else would simply fall into a donkey doze, that happy, trance-like state that donkeys can attain when, with half-closed eyes, they appear to be dreaming of some nirvana and become impervious to shouts, threats, or even whacks with sticks. The dogs, after a short period of patience, would start to yawn and sigh and scratch and show by many small signs that they felt we had devoted enough time to a spider or whatever it was and should move on. Sally, however, once she was in her doze, gave the impression that she would happily stay there for several days if the necessity arose.

One day a peasant friend of mine, a man who had obtained a number of specimens for me and who was a careful observer, informed me that there were two huge birds hanging about in a rocky valley some five miles north of the villa. He thought that they must be nesting there. From his description they could only be eagles or vultures and I was most anxious to try to get some young of either of these birds. My birds of prey collection now numbered three species of owl, a sparrowhawk, a merlin, and a kestrel, so I felt the addition of an eagle or vulture would round it off. Needless to say I did not vouchsafe my ambition to the family, as already the meat bill for my animals was astronomical. Apart from this I could imagine Larry's reaction to the suggestion of a vulture being inserted into the house. When acquiring new pets I always found it wiser to face him with a fait accompli fait accompli, for once the animals were introduced to the villa I could generally count on getting Mother and Margo on my side.

I prepared for my expedition with great care, making up loads of food for myself and the dogs, a good supply of gasoza gasoza as well as the normal complement of collecting tins and boxes, my b.u.t.terfly net and a large bag to put my eagle or vulture in. I also took Leslie's binoculars; they were of a higher magnification than my own. He, luckily, was not around for me to ask, but I felt sure he would happily have lent them to me had he been at home. Having checked my equipment for the last time to make sure nothing was missing I proceeded to festoon Sally with the various items. She was in a singularly sullen and recalcitrant mood, even by donkey standards, and annoyed me by deliberately treading on my foot and then giving me a sharp nip on the b.u.t.tock when I bent down to pick up my fallen b.u.t.terfly net. She took grave offence at the clout I gave her for this misbehaviour, so we started this expedition barely on speaking terms. Coldly, I fixed her straw hat over her furry lily-shaped ears, whistled to the dogs and set off. as well as the normal complement of collecting tins and boxes, my b.u.t.terfly net and a large bag to put my eagle or vulture in. I also took Leslie's binoculars; they were of a higher magnification than my own. He, luckily, was not around for me to ask, but I felt sure he would happily have lent them to me had he been at home. Having checked my equipment for the last time to make sure nothing was missing I proceeded to festoon Sally with the various items. She was in a singularly sullen and recalcitrant mood, even by donkey standards, and annoyed me by deliberately treading on my foot and then giving me a sharp nip on the b.u.t.tock when I bent down to pick up my fallen b.u.t.terfly net. She took grave offence at the clout I gave her for this misbehaviour, so we started this expedition barely on speaking terms. Coldly, I fixed her straw hat over her furry lily-shaped ears, whistled to the dogs and set off.

Although it was still early the sun was hot and the sky clear, burning blue, like the blue you get by scattering salt on a fire, blurred at the edges with heat haze. To begin with we made our way along the road thick with white dust, as clinging as pollen, and we pa.s.sed many of my peasant friends on their donkeys, going to market or down to their fields to work. This inevitably held up the progress of the expedition, for good manners required that I pa.s.sed the time of day with each one. In Corfu one must always gossip for the right length of time and perhaps accept a crust of bread, some dry watermelon seeds, or a bunch of grapes as a sign of love and affection. So when it was time to turn off the hot, dusty road and start climbing through the cool olive groves I was laden with a variety of edible commodities, the largest of which was a watermelon, a generous present pressed upon me by Mama Agathi, a friend of mine whom I had not seen for a week, an unconscionable length of time, during which she presumed I had been without food.

The olive groves were dark with shadows and as cool as a well after the glare of the road. The dogs went ahead as usual, foraging around the great pitted olive boles and occasionally, maddened by their audacity, chasing skimming swallows, barking vociferously. Failing, as always, to catch one, they would then attempt to vent their wrath on some innocent sheep or vacant-faced chicken, and would have to be sternly reprimanded. Sally, her previous sulkiness forgotten, stepped out at a good pace, one ear p.r.i.c.ked forward and the other one backward, so that she could listen to my singing and comments on the pa.s.sing scene.

Presently we left the shade of the olives and climbed upwards through the heat-shimmered hills, making our way through thickets of myrtle bushes, small copses of holm oak, and great wigs of broom. Here Sally's hooves crushed the herbs underfoot and the warm air became redolent with the scent of sage and thyme. By midday, the dogs panting, Sally and I sweating profusely, we were high up among the gold and rust-red rocks of the central range, while far below us lay the sea, blue as flax. By half past two, pausing to rest in the shade of a ma.s.sive outcrop of stone, I was feeling thoroughly frustrated. We had followed the instructions of my friend and had indeed found a nest, which tomy excitement proved to be that of agriffon vulture, moreover, the nest perched on a rocky ledge contained two fat and almost fully fledged youngsters at just the right age for adoption. The snag was that I could not reach the nest, either from above or below. After having spent a fruitless hour trying to kidnap the babies I was forced, albeit reluctantly, to give up the idea of adding vultures to my birds of prey collection. We moved down the mountainside and stopped to rest and eat in the shade. While I ate my sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, Sally had a light lunch of dry maize cobs and watermelon, and the dogs a.s.suaged their thirst with a mixture of watermelon and grapes, gobbling the juicy fruit eagerly and occasionally choking and coughing as a melon seed got stuck. Because of their voraciousness and total lack of table manners, they had finished their lunch long before Sally or I, and having reluctantly come to the conclusion that I did not intend to give them any more to eat they left us and slouched down the mountainside to indulge in a little private hunting.

I lay on my tummy eating crisp, cool watermelon, pink as coral, and examined the hillside. Fifty feet or so below where I lay were the ruins of a small peasant house. Here and there on the hillside I could just discern the crescent shaped, flattened areas which had once been the tiny fields of the farm. Eventually, it must have become obvious that the impoverished soil would no longer support maize or vegetables on the pocket handkerchief fields, and so the owner had moved away. The house had tumbled down and the fields become overrun with weeds and myrtle. I was staring at the remains of the cottage, wondering who had lived there, when I saw something reddish moving through the thyme at the base of one of the walls.

Slowly I reached out for the field gla.s.ses and put them to my eyes. The tumbled ma.s.s of rocks at the base of the wall sprang into clear view, but for a moment I could not see what it was that had attracted my attention. Then, to my astonishment, from behind a clump of thyme appeared a lithe, tiny animal, as red as an autumn leaf. It was a weasel, and to judge by its behaviour, a young and rather innocent one. It was the first weasel I had seen on Corfu and I was enchanted by it. It peered about with a slightly bemused air and then stood up on its hind legs and sniffed the air vigorously. Apparently not smelling anything edible, it sat down and had an intensive and, from the look of it, very satisfying scratch. Then it suddenly broke off from its toilet and carefully stalked and attempted to capture a vivid canary-yellow brimstone b.u.t.terfly. The insect, however, slipped out from under its jaws and flipped away, leaving the weasel snapping at thin air and looking slightly foolish. It sat up on its hind legs once more, to see where its quarry had gone and, overbalancing, almost fell off the stone on which it was sitting.

I watched it, entranced by its diminutive size, its rich colouring, and its air of innocence. I wanted above all things to catch it and take it home with me to add to my menagerie but I knew this would be difficult. While I was musing on the best method of achieving this result a drama unfolded in the ruined cottage below. I saw a shadow, like a Maltese cross, slide over the low scrub, and a sparrowhawk appeared, flying low and fast towards the weasel who was sitting up on his stone sniffing the air and apparently unaware of his danger. I was just wondering whether to shout or clap my hands to warn him when he saw the hawk. With an incredible turn of speed he turned, leaped gracefully on to the ruined wall and disappeared into a crack between two stones that I would have thought would not have allowed the pa.s.sage of a slow-worm, let alone a mammal the size of the weasel. It was like a conjuring trick; one minute he had been sitting on his rock, the next he vanished into the wall like a drop of rain water. The sparrowhawk checked with fanned tail and hovered briefly, obviously hoping the weasel would reappear. After a moment or so it got bored and slid off down the mountainside in search of less wary game. After a short time the weasel poked his little face out of the crack. Seeing the coast was clear he emerged cautiously. Then he made his way along the wall and, as though his recent escape into the crack had given him the idea, he proceeded to investigate and disappear into every nook and cranny that existed between the stones. As I watched him I was wondering how to make my way down the hill so as to throw my shirt over him before he was aware of my presence. In view of his expert vanishing trick when faced with the hawk, it was obviously not going to be easy.

At that moment he slid, sinuous as a snake, into a hole in the base of the wall. From another hole a little higher up there emerged a second animal in a great state of alarm, which made its way along the top of the wall and disappeared into a crevice. I was greatly excited, for even with the brief glimpse I had got of it, I recognized it as a creature that I had tried for many months to track down and capture, a garden dormouse, probably one of the most attractive of the European rodents. It was about half the size of a full-grown rat, with cinnamon-coloured fur, brilliant white underparts, a long furry tail ending in a brush of black and white hair, and a black mask of fur beneath the ears, running across the eyes and making it look ridiculously as though it was wearing an old-fashioned mask of the sort that burglars were reputed to indulge in.

I was now in something of a quandary, for there below me were two animals I dearly wanted to possess, one hotly pursuing the other, and both of them exceedingly wary. If my attack was not well planned I stood a good chance of losing both animals. I decided to tackle the weasel first, as he was the more mobile of the two, and I felt that the dormouse would not move from its new hole if undisturbed. On reflection I decided that my b.u.t.terfly net was a more suitable instrument than my shirt, so armed with it I made my way down the hillside with the utmost caution, freezing immobile every time the weasel appeared out of the hole and looked around. Eventually I got to within a few feet of the wall without being detected. I tightened my grip on the long handle of my net and waited for the weasel to come out from the depths of the hole he was now investigating. When he did emerge he did so with such suddenness that I was unprepared. He sat up on his hind legs and stared at me with interest untinged by alarm. I was just about to take a swipe at him with my net when, crashing through the bushes, tongues lolling, tails wagging, came the three dogs, as vociferously pleased to see me as if we had been separated for months. The weasel vanished. One minute he was sitting there, frozen with horror at this avalanche of dogs, the next he was gone. Bitterly I cursed the dogs and banished them to the higher reaches of the mountain, where they went to lie in the shade, hurt and puzzled at my bad temper. Then I set about trying to capture the dormouse.

Over the years the mortar between the stones had grown frail and heavy winter rains had washed it away so that now, to all intents and purposes, the remains of the house was a series of dry-stone walls. With its maze of intercommunicating tunnels and caves, it formed the ideal hideout for any small animal. There was only one way to hunt for an animal in this sort of terrain and that was to take the wall to pieces, so rather laboriously this was what I started to do. After having dismantled a good section of it I had unearthed nothing more exciting than a couple of indignant scorpions, a few woodlice, and a young gecko who fled, leaving his writhing tail behind him. It was hot and thirsty work and after an hour or so I sat down in the shade of the, as yet, undismantled wall to have a rest.

I was just wondering how long it would take me to demolish the rest of the wall when from a hole some three feet from me, the dormouse appeared. It scrambled up like a somewhat overweight mountain climber and then, having reached the top, sat down on its fat bottom and began to wash its face with great thoroughness, totally ignoring my presence. I could hardly believe my luck. Slowly and with great caution I manoeuvred my b.u.t.terfly net towards him, got it into position, and then clapped it down suddenly. This would have worked perfectly if the top of the wall had been flat, but it was not. I could not press the rim of the net down hard enough to avoid leaving a gap. To my intense annoyance and frustration, the dormouse, recovering from its momentary panic, squeezed out from under the net, galloped along the wall and disappeared into another crevice. However this proved to be its undoing, for it had chosen a 'cul de sac' and before it had discovered its mistake I had clamped the net over the entrance.

The next thing was to get it out and into the bag without getting bitten. This was not easy and before I had finished it had sunk its exceedingly sharp teeth into the ball of my thumb, so that I, the handkerchief, and the dormouse were liberally bespattered with gore. Finally, however, I got it into the bag. Delighted with my success, I mounted Sally and rode home in triumph with my new acquisition.

On arrival at the villa I carried the dormouse up to my room and housed it in a cage which had, until recently, been the home of a baby black rat. This rat had met an unfortunate end in the claws of my scops owl, Ulysses, who was of the opinion that all rodents had been created by a beneficent providence in order to fill his stomach. I therefore made quite sure that my precious dormouse could not escape and meet a similar fate. Once it was in the cage I was able to examine it more closely. I discovered it was a female with a suspiciously large tummy, which led me to believe that she might be pregnant. After some consideration I called her Esmerelda (I had just been reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame The Hunchback of Notre Dame and had fallen deeply in love with the heroine), and provided her with a cardboard box full of cotton waste and dried gra.s.s in which to have her family. and had fallen deeply in love with the heroine), and provided her with a cardboard box full of cotton waste and dried gra.s.s in which to have her family.

For the first few days Esmerelda would leap at my hand like a bulldog when I went to clean her cage or feed her, but within a week she had grown tame and tolerated me, though still viewing me with a certain reserve. Every evening Ulysses, on his special perch above the window, would wake up and I would open the shutters so that he could fly off into the moonlit olive groves and hunt, only returning for his plate of mincemeat at about two in the morning. Once he was safely out of the way I could let Esmerelda out of her cage for a couple of hours' exercise. She proved to be an enchanting creature with enormous grace in spite of her rotundity, and would take prodigious and breathtaking leaps from the cupboard on to the bed (where she bounced as if it was a trampoline), and from the bed to the bookcase or table, using her long tail with its bushy end as a balancing rod. She was vastly inquisitive and nightly would subject the room and its contents to a minute scrutiny, scowling through her black mask with whiskers quivering. I discovered that she had a consuming pa.s.sion for large brown gra.s.shoppers and she would often come and sit on my bare chest, as I lay in bed, and scrunch these delicacies. The result was that my bed always seemed to contain a p.r.i.c.kly layer of wing cases, bits of leg, and chunks of h.o.r.n.y thorax, for she was a greedy and not particularly well-mannered feeder.

The came the exciting evening when, after Ulysses had floated on silent wings into the olive groves and commenced to call 'toink, toink' after the manner of his kind, I opened the cage door to find that she would not come out but lurked inside the cardboard box and made angry chittering noises at me. When I tried to investigate her bedroom she fastened onto my forefinger like a tiger and I had great difficulty in getting her to let go. Eventually I managed to get her off and, holding her firmly by the scruff of the neck, investigated the box. I found there, to my infinite delight, eight babies, each the size of a hazelnut and as pink as a cyclamen bud. Delighted with Esmerelda's happy event I showered her with gra.s.shoppers, melon seeds, grapes, and other delicacies of which I knew she was particularly fond, and followed the progress of the babies with breathless interest.

Gradually the babies developed. Their eyes opened and their fur grew. Within a short time the more powerful and adventurous of them would climb laboriously out of their cardboard nursery and wobble about on the floor of the cage when Esmerelda was not looking. This filled her with alarm, and she would pick the errant baby up in her mouth, and uttering peevish growling noises, transfer it to the safety of the bedroom. This was all very well with one or two, but as soon as all eight babies reached the inquisitive stage, it was impossible for her to control them and so she had to let them wander at will. They started to follow her out of the cage and it was then that I discovered that dormice, like shrews, have a habit of caravanning. That is to say Esmerelda would go first; hanging on to her tail would be baby number one, hanging on to his or hers would be baby number two, on to his baby number three, and so on. It was a magical sight to see these nine diminutive creatures, each wearing his little black mask, wending their way around the room like an animated furry scarf, flying over the bed or shillying up the table leg. A scattering of gra.s.shoppers on the bed or floor, and the babies, squeaking excitedly, would gather round to feed, looking ridiculously like a convention of bandits.

Eventually, when the babies were fully adult, I was forced to take them into the olive grove and let them go. The task of providing sufficient food for nine rapacious dormice was proving too time-consuming. I released them at the edge of the olive grove, near a thicket of holm oak, and these they colonized successfully. In the evenings, when the sun was setting and the sky was getting as green as a leaf, striped with sunset clouds, I used to go down to watch the little masked dormice flitting through the branches with a ballerina-like grace, chittering and squeaking to each other as they pursued moths, or fireflies or other delicacies through the shadowy branches.

It was a result of one of my many forays on donkey-back that we became infested by dogs. We had been up in the hills where I had been endeavouring to catch some agamas on the glittering gypsum cliffs. We returned towards evening, when the shadows lay everywhere, charcoal black, and everything was bathed in the slanting, soft golden light of the sinking sun. We were hot and tired, hungry and thirsty, for we had long since eaten and drunk everything that we had brought with us. The last vineyard we had pa.s.sed had only yielded some bunches of very black wine-grapes whose sharp vinegariness had made the dogs curl back their lips and screw up their eyes and had left me feeling hungrier and thirstier than ever.

I decided that as leader of the expedition it was up to me to provide sustenance for the rest of the crew. I reined in and thought about the problem. We were equidistant between three sources of food. There was the shepherd, old Yani, who would, I knew, give us cheese and bread, but his wife would probably be still in the fields and Yani himself might not have returned from grazing his goat flock. There was Agathi, who lived alone in a tiny, tumbledown cottage, but she was so poor that I felt guilty at accepting anything from her, and, in fact, always made a point of sharing my food with her when I was around that way. Finally, there was sweet and gentle Mama Kondos, a widow of some eighty summers, who lived with her three unmarried and, as far as I could see, unmarriageable daughters on an untidy but prosperous farm in a valley to the south. They were quite well off by peasant standards, owning, apart from five or six acres of olives and agricultural land, two donkeys, four sheep, and a cow. They were what one might call the landed gentry of the area, and so I decided that the honour of revictualling my expedition would fall to them.

The three inordinately fat, ill-favoured but good-natured girls had just returned from working in the fields and were gathered round the small well, bright and shrill as parrots, washing their fat, hairy brown legs. Mama Kondos herself, like a diminutive clockwork toy, was trotting to and fro scattering maize for the squawking tousled flock of chickens. There was nothing straight about Mama Kondos; her diminutive body was bent like a sickle blade, her legs were bowed with years of carrying heavy loads on her head, her arms and hands permanently bent from picking things up; even her upper and lower lips curved inwards over her toothless gums, and her snow-white, dandelion-seed eyebrows curved over her black eyes, blue-rimmed, which in their turn were guarded on each side by a fence of curved wrinkles in a skin as delicate as a baby mushroom's.

The daughters, on seeing me, gave shrill cries of joy and gathered round me like benign shire horses, clasping me to their mammoth bosoms and kissing me, exuding affection, sweat, and garlic in equal quant.i.ties. Mama Kondos, a small, bent David among these aromatic Goliaths, beat them aside, shouting shrilly: 'Give him to me, give him to me! My golden one, my heart, my love! Give him to me.' She clasped me to her and covered my face with bruising kisses, for her gums were as hard as a tortoise's mouth.

At length, after I had been thoroughly kissed and patted and pinched all over to make sure I was real, I was allowed to sit down and to offer some explanations as to why I had deserted them for so long. Did I not realize that it was a whole week since I had visited them? How could my love be so cruel, so tardy, so ephemeral? Still, since I was here at last, would I like some food? I said yes, I would love some, and some for Sally as well. The dogs, more ill-mannered, had helped themselves; Widdle and Puke had torn sweet white grapes off the vine that trailed over part of the house and were gulping them down greedily, while Roger, who appeared to be more thirsty than hungry, had gone beneath the fig and almond trees and had disembowelled a watermelon. He was laying with his nose stuck into its cool pink interior, his eyes closed in ecstasy, sucking the sweet icy juice through his teeth. Immediately, Sally was given three cobs of ripe corn to chew on and a bucket of water to slake her thirst, while I was presented with a mammoth sweet potato, its skin black and deliciously charcoaly from the fire, its sweet flesh beautifully soggy, a bowl of almonds, some figs, two enormous peaches, a hunk of yellow bread, olive oil and garlic.

Once I had engulfed this provender and thus taken the edge off my hunger, I could concentrate on exchanging gossip. Pepi had fallen out of an olive tree and broken his arm, silly boy; Leonora was going to have another baby to replace the one that died; Yani no, not that Yani, the Yani over on the other side of the hill had quarrelled with Taki over the price of a donkey and Taki had got so angry he had fired his shotgun at the side of Yani's house, only it had been a very dark night and Taki was drunk and it had turned out to be Spiro's house, so now none of them were speaking. For some time we discussed the foibles and dissected the characters of our fellow men with great relish and then I noticed that Lulu was missing from the scene. Lulu was Mama Kondos' dog, a lean and long-legged b.i.t.c.h with huge soulful eyes and long floppy ears like a spaniel. Like all peasant dogs, she was gaunt and scabby, her ribs sticking out like the strings of a harp, but she was an endearing creature and I was fond of her. Normally, she was one of the first to greet me but now she was nowhere to be seen. Had anything happened to her, I asked.

'Puppies!' said Mama Kondos. 'Po, po, po, po. Eleven! Would you believe it?'

They had tied Lulu up to an olive tree near the house when the birth had become imminent and she had crawled into the depths of the tree trunk to have her young. After she had greeted me with enthusiasm she watched with interest as I crawled into the olive tree on hands and knees and extracted the puppies to look at. As always, I was amazed that such scrawny, half-starved mothers could produce such plump, powerful puppies, with squashed, belligerent faces and loud seagull voices. They were, as usual, in a wide variety of colours black and white, white and tan, silver and bluish-grey, all black and all white. Any litter of Corfu puppies displays such a wide variety of colour schemes that to settle the question of paternity is virtually impossible. I sat with the mewling patchwork of puppies in my lap and told Lulu how clever she was. She wagged her tail furiously.

'Clever, huh?' said Mama Kondos sourly. 'Eleven puppies isn't clever, it's wanton. We shall have to get rid of all but one.'

I was well aware that Lulu could not possibly be allowed to keep her full complement of puppies and, in fact, she was lucky that they were going to leave her one. I felt I might be of use. I said that I felt sure that my mother would not only be delighted at the thought of having a puppy but would be overwhelmed with grat.i.tude to the Kondos family and Lulu for providing her with one. I therefore, after much thought, chose the one I liked best, a slug-fat, screaming little male who was black, white, and grey with bright, corn-coloured eyebrows and feet. I asked them to save this one for me until he was old enough to leave Lulu; in the meantime, I would apprise Mother of the exciting fact that we had acquired another dog, which would bring our complement up to five; a nice round figure, I considered.

To my astonishment, Mother was not a bit pleased with the suggested increase in our dog tribe.

'No, dear,' she said firmly, 'we are not having another dog. Four is quite enough. And what with all your owls and everything it's costing a fortune in meat anyway. No, I'm afraid another dog is out of the question.'

In vain I argued that the puppy would be killed if we did not intervene. Mother remained firm. There was only one thing to be done. I had noticed in the past that Mother, faced with a hypothetical question like, 'Would you like a nestful of baby redstarts?' would say 'no' firmly and automatically. Faced, however, with the nestful of baby birds, she would inevitably waver and then say yes. Obviously, there was only one thing to be done and that was to show her the puppy. I was confident that she would never be able to resist his golden eyebrows and socks. I sent a message down to the Kondoses asking if I could borrow the puppy to show Mother, and one of the fat daughters obligingly brought it up the next day. But when I unwrapped it from the cloth in which she had brought it I found to my annoyance that Mama Kondos had sent the wrong puppy. I explained this to the daughter, who said that she could do nothing about it as she was on her way to the village. I had better go and see her mother. She added that I had better make haste as Mama Kondos had mentioned that she was intending to destroy the puppies that morning. Hastily, I mounted Sally and galloped through the olive groves.

When I reached the farm I found Mama Kondos sitting in the sun stringing garlic heads together into white, k.n.o.bbly plaits, while around her the chickens scratched and purred contentedly. After she had embraced me, asked after the health of myself and the family and given me a plate of green figs, I produced the puppy and explained my errand.

'The wrong one?' she exclaimed, peering at the yelling puppy and prodding it with her forefinger. 'The wrong one? How stupid of me. Po po po po Po po po po, I quite thought it was the one with white eyebrows you wanted.' Had she, I inquired anxiously, destroyed the rest of the puppies?

'Oh yes,' she said absently, still staring at the puppy. 'Yes, this morning, early.'

Well then, I said resignedly, since I could not have the one I had set my heart on, I had better have the one she had saved.

'No, I think I can get you the one you want,' she said, getting to her feet and fetching a broad-bladed hoe.

How, I wondered, could she get me my puppy if she had destroyed them? Perhaps she was going to retrieve the corpse for me. I had no desire for that. I was just going to say so when Mama Kondos, mumbling to herself, trotted off to a field nearby the house, where the stalks of the first crop of maize stood yellow and brittle in the hot sun-cracked ground. Here she cast about for a moment and then started to dig. With the second sweep of the hoe she dug up three screaming puppies, their legs paddling frantically, ears, eyes, and pink mouths choked with earth.

I was paralysed with horror. She checked the puppies she had dug up, found they were not the one that I wanted, threw them to one side, and recommenced digging. It was only then that the full realization of what Mama Kondos had done swept over me. I felt as though a great scarlet bubble of hate burst in my chest and tears of rage poured down my cheeks. From my not uncomprehensive knowledge of Greek insults, I dragged up the worst in my vocabularly. Yelling these at Mama Kondos, I pushed her out of the way so hard that she sat down suddenly, bewildered among the corn stalks. Still calling down the curses of every saint and deity I could think of, I seized the hoe and rapidly but carefully dug up the rest of the gasping puppies. Mama Kondos was too astonished by my sudden change from calm to rage to say anything; she just sat there, open-mouthed. I stuffed the puppies unceremoniously into my shirt, collected Lulu and the pup that had been left to her, and rode off on Sally, shouting curses over my shoulder at Mama Kondos, who had now got to her feet and was running after me shouting: 'But, golden one, what's the matter? Why are you crying? You can have all the puppies. What's the matter?'

I burst into the house, hot, tear-stained, covered with mud, my shirt bulging with puppies, Lulu trotting at my heels, delighted with this sudden and unexpected outing for herself and her offspring. Mother was, as usual, embedded in the kitchen making various delicacies for Margo who had been away touring the mainland of Greece to recover from yet another unfortunate affair of the heart. Mother listened to my incoherent and indignant account of the puppies' premature burial and was duly shocked.

'Really!' she exclaimed indignantly. 'These peasants! I can't understand how they can be so cruel. Burying them alive! I never heard of such a barbarous thing. You did quite right to save them, dear. Where are they?'

I ripped open my shirt, as though committing hara-kiri, and a cascade of wriggling puppies fell out on to the kitchen table where they started to grope their way blindly about, squeaking.

'Gerry, dear, not on the table where I'm rolling pastry,' said Mother. 'Really, you children! Yes, well, even if it's clean mud we don't want it in the pies. Get a basket.'

I got a basket and we put the puppies into it. Mother peered at them.

'Poor little things,' she said. 'There do seem to be an awful lot of them. How How many? Eleven! Well, I don't know what we'll do with them. We can't have eleven dogs with the ones we've got.' many? Eleven! Well, I don't know what we'll do with them. We can't have eleven dogs with the ones we've got.'

I said hastily that I had got it all worked out; as soon as the puppies were old enough we would find homes for them. I added that Margo, who would be home by then, could help me; it would be an occupation for her and keep her mind off s.e.x.