Report to Grego (77 page)

“You are a merciless inquisitor,” I said. “You torture and kill the body in order to save the soul.”

“You call it soul, I call it flame,” you answered me.

“I love the body. The flesh seems holy to me, it too is from God. And don't become angry if I tell you something else: the flesh has a glimmer from the soul, and the soul has a fleshly fuzz. They live together in harmonious balance like two young girls who are good friends and neighbors. You smash the sacred balance.”

“Balance means stagnation, and stagnation means death.”

“But in that case life is ceaseless denial. You deny what succeeded in opposing dissolution by achieving a balance. You smash this, and seek the uncertain.”

“I seek the certain. I rip apart the masks, lift up the layers of flesh. I say to myself, Something immortal exists beneath the meat, it cannot be otherwise. This is what I am seeking, this is what I am going to paint. All the rest—masks, flesh, beauty—I gladly present to the Titians and Tintorettos, and I hope they enjoy them!”

“You want to surpass Titian and Tintoretto? Do not forget the Cretan mantinádha: ‘If you build your nest too high, the branch will break!'”

You shook your head.

“No, I do not want to surpass anyone. I am alone, isolated.”

“You are extraordinarily proud of yourself, Meneghí. Like Lucifer.”

“No, I am extraordinarily alone.”

“Take care, my dear friend! God punishes arrogance and isolation.”

Without replying, you cast a final glance at the bellowing sea and swept your gaze over the still-sleeping city. The first cocks crowed. You rose.

“Come,” you said. “It is dawn.”

You clasped me around the waist again, and we resumed our walk. You were mumbling some words, opening and closing your mouth. You obviously wished to disclose something to me, but felt hesitant. Finally you could not restrain yourself.

“What I am going to tell you is distressing, Menegháki. Forgive me. You can say I am drunk.”

I laughed. “Now that you're drunk you have the perfect oppor
tunity to say what you shrink from saying when you are sober. The Malevyzian wine is talking, not you. . . . Well?”

Your voice resounded extremely deep and embittered in the pale dawn.

“One night I demanded of God, ‘Lord, when are You going to pardon Lucifer?' and God answered, ‘When he pardons me.' Do you understand, my young friend? Some day if you are asked who is God's greatest collaborator, you should say Lucifer. If you are asked who is the most sorrowful of God's creatures, you should say Lucifer. Lastly, if you are asked who is the prodigal son whose father waits for him with open arms, having killed the fatted calf, you should say Lucifer.

“I am revealing my most hidden secrets to you because I want you to know that if I am too late, or unable, to accomplish all I have in mind to accomplish, you must continue the struggle. Continue it without fear, never forgetting the savage injunction Cretan gives to Cretan: Pay out your youth to it with never a tear! That is what it means to be a man, to be truly brave: a pallikari. That is the holy flame's ultimate desire.

“Do you give me your word? Can you do it? Your courage will not grow faint? You will not look behind you and say, ‘Prosperity is a fine thing, and so is a woman's embrace, and so is glory'? . . . Why don't you speak?”

“The charge you give me is a heavy one, Meneghí. Couldn't man's duty be made a little less bitter?”

“Yes, but not for you or me. There are three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers. One: I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me lest I rot. Two: Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break. Three: Overdraw me, and who cares if I break!

“Choose!”

I
awoke. The bells of the neighborhood church, Santo Tomé, were tolling matins; day had begun. Cries echoed in the street, women's heels clacked on the cobblestones, a young cock crowed raucously in the courtyard. Toledo was awakening. My dream still clung to my eyelashes; I could still hear the final, merciless word which had filled me with terror and shaken me out of my sleep. Choose!

Beloved grandfather, how much time—a flash or three centuries—
has passed since that night when I slept in Toledo and you, scenting the arrival of a Cretan in your neighborhood, rose from your grave, turned into a dream, and came to find me? In the atmosphere of love, who can distinguish a flash from eternity? A life has slipped by since then. Black hair has whitened, temples have sunk, eyes grown dim. I was never able to determine in whose hands, God's or the devil's, the bow creaked. But I rejoiced at feeling a power, very much greater and purer than my own, continually arming me with arrows and shooting. All wood is from the true cross because all wood can be made into a cross. Similarly, all bodies are sacred because all bodies can be made into a bow. My entire lifetime I was a bow in merciless, insatiable hands. How often those invisible hands drew and overdrew the bow until I heard it creak at the breaking point! “Let it break,” I cried each time. After all, you had commanded me to choose, grandfather, and I chose.

I chose. Now the twilight casts its haze upon the hilltops. The shadows have lengthened, the air has filled with the dead. The battle is drawing to a close. Did I win or lose? The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

Full of wounds, all in the breast. I did what I could, grandfather. More than I could, just as you directed. I did not want you to feel ashamed of me. Now that the battle is over, I come to recline at your side, to become dust at your side, that the two of us may await the Final Judgment together.

I kiss your hand, grandfather. I kiss your right shoulder, I kiss your left shoulder.

Grandfather, hello!

ENGLISH TRANSLATION COPYRIGHT © 1965

BY SIMON & SCHUSTER

ORIGINAL GREEK LANGUAGE EDITION ENTITLED

ANAΦOPA ΣTON ΓKPEKO

COPYRIGHT © 1961 BY HELEN N. KAZANTZAKIS

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION

IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM

A TOUCHSTONE BOOK

PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER

A DIVISION OF GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION

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ISBN 0-671-22027-6

ISBN 13: 978-1-4767-0686-3 (EBOOK)

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DESIGNED BY EDITH FOWLER