Noose – Chapter 6

Noose – Chapter 6

Welcoming the New Year, 1948.

1.

The wonderful city began to die out and its people were crying in fear and horror. Everyone’s destiny was in our hands and in the hands of all those bearing arms. And as if cursed by God, the people of this city now had to celebrate the New Year, 1948, in their dark basements and the world knew nothing about them. Fires were burning everywhere; we were starting them, sowing fear in everyone. Instead of the smells and tastes of meat cooking (pork or roast chicken) to welcome the New Year, there was smoke and fire everywhere. In place of laughter and children’s games there were tears of mothers and of captured women and children. The fresh air, for some time now, had not been there in spite of the cold winter. Everyone’s conscience was dark and everyone saw everyone else only through the sight of a rifle. Leonidas and I were on guard. The weather was bad, a lot of snow had fallen and the area was blanketed by thick fog. A bunch of black cats ran by not too far from us and it looked like their eyes were glowing red. Leonidas was quick to make an observation: “Over there masculinity is still the only weapon against death. Look at the cats! This means that nature is fighting back. The feral cats are rebelling. You know about the ancient prophecy, uncovered a while ago, that predicts that cats will commit great violence against humans. Right? This was written by the great Chinese philosopher Confucius, born five centuries before Christ, known for his wisdom and common sense, preoccupied with mystical powers and prophecy. Confucius said: ‘…And panic will spread around the world when ordinary domesticated cats begin to attack people. Their rebellion will last for months and thousands of people will die’.” I foolishly then asked: “Could this really be the beginning?” Leonidas replied: “I don’t know!” while stiffly pointing at the cats. Nervousness is a strange phenomenon, a disorder of the nervous system, causing tremors and outbursts of emotion, outbursts for moral victory. Nervousness can lead to inhuman behavior. For a few days now we had become obsessed with killing the people in uniform who wanted to harm us. Particularly those who constantly shouted from all over the city: “Do not let them destroy your longstanding love for the people of this city. These are people with mental and psychological disorders. They are bandits led by their General Markos. Death to the bandits!” We were fed up with their behaviour. I guess that is why our commander gave us orders to: “Shoot at all targets, static or moving, eradicate them all, this is the only way we can succeed in installing our General Markos.” Andonis at one point said: “You know that Commander Arianos is quite mad! He doesn’t know that when someone attacks a man he attacks humanity. It will be hard to fight and even harder and worse if we don’t fight. Every day we are in his target. We have no right to make mistakes. As for the enemy, it is waiting for us to attempt to destroy it and that will give it reason to destroy us.” The shooting subsided during the evening that day. The church looked magnificent with its beautiful colours. Life and hope sprang from the candlelight. My grandmother was probably right when she said that man is happiest when his eyes, ears and heart are full. For days now we have been waging war in the cruelest way. Everything seemed hopeless. The streets were deserted and the people were dying. Even the winter, with its white snow, was powerless against the darkness, a darkness that existed in the heart, a darkness that was quietly killing the city. Snowflakes fell everywhere, settling on us and on our weapons, and then dying...

2.

We spent the night in a large cellar but as I was falling asleep, it seemed to me like we were crammed into a cave. We were crammed into caves from time to time when we were squeezed in the dark of darkness. We were all lying on the ground, living in basements. For days now this kind of living was affecting our morale and our failure was becoming a habit. But I could always count on Leonidas for advice: “You need to be careful tonight friend,” he said to me. “Today there is a full moon. And you know what they say? People go insane during a full moon. You also know that most random killings, shootings, suicides, thefts and all that happen during a full moon... Our ancestors had special rules and a lot of advice about the do’s and don’ts during a full moon. You know that according to old beliefs, it was precisely during the nights of a full moon that the dead would climb out of their graves as vampires or as other forms of night creatures. Fairies would dance their dance in the open meadows, trolls would look for abandoned mills to occupy and witches would gather at their meeting place during a full moon.” Thanks to Leonidas, that night my sleep was filled with nightmares. After a night full of nightmares I woke up very hungry. My gut was growling. I woke up lying on my back. In my dreams I had slept with a woman made of marble, beautiful but cold. I was happy to have awakened from these painful nightmares. Awake I felt like I had just swum in a river of warm water. When I opened my eyes I saw Rula exhausted, sitting, sleeping at the table. For a moment I thought that she was a witch or that woman made of marble from my dreams. She also woke up. While sleeping she was that innocent, mischievous, pure young lady from the city Larissa, that I used to know. But after she awoke her face became hard and unfriendly. “Rula! Is that you?” I asked. Suddenly she jumped to her feet and screamed: “Blood brother!!??” “What are you doing here?” I asked. She looked at me and her eyes became the eyes of a wounded and disappointed soldier. She said: “I was not free to love. I left that situation because it felt like a spiritual wasteland. I came back here to be with rugged and honest people. The kind that tame horses and look at disappointed girls. Here with you I can sing and starve collectively. I want to drink water from the same mountain spring from which a young mouth with untainted teeth would drink. Here with you I want to learn to sing and cry, like a river with deep shores. I want to take the truth to the sea. A cold veil was controlling that part of my body. I carried the horror in an underground prolonged, repeated abuse. After the disappearance of the warm world in me, there was only room for cold disgust. I disappeared; I got lost in the unpredictable waves of ice in which there is neither life nor love. I was also tortured by that famous saying, ‘I married an old man in order to advance my position and career …’ That was the most common comment made about me by everyone, especially by the women. I definitely left the chaotic love life I was living in the camp - like in the Cave of Alibaba. I repeat, I was tortured by that well-known saying, ‘She got herself an old man to advance her position… her career…’ This was the most common comment made by everyone, even in my presence; especially from the women... This was my banishment from consciousness. I wanted to be sufficiently prepared for love so that I could live, but I couldn’t. The secret of disappearance of appeal, according to the General, I could not shake off. Hiding the disease predominated in me. I wanted change in my consciousness. And the psychiatrist herself wanted me to do that too, but I failed to be a woman again, at the best time of my life. I wanted to bring my past femininity back but I outlived that with the general and vice versa. He has long left me alone in the damp walls of the underground barracks. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times but I could not get used to it, to exist alone in the gloomy barracks.

Fear had crept into my consciousness.” Leafing through the General’s personal letters, Rula one day discovered a letter in which the General had written a note to his lover Vangelitsa, calling her “his little mouse.” He wrote that he wanted to have a family with Vangelitsa and that “it would be our perfect little nest.” “But you need to hope that the revolution will end soon.” Rula was stunned by the letter and thought to herself: “Does the general think love is free for the revolutionaries up here in the mountains? So they think that they can protect their breeder pigeons at home and here in the mountains seek free love with the rural women whom they mobilized by force?” Rula had realized that her love was random and accidental, but her feelings were being hurt by spiteful comments made by people. For example, only a few days ago she was talking to an older woman in the camp when this older woman said to her: “There are lightweight men who chase lightweight women who take the easy way up to the top positions of power. To become generals... or their wives.” “After hearing those comments I was going crazy,” said Rula. “I had to drink a lot of ‘METAXAS’ cognac to calm myself down and go to sleep. I felt like I was losing control and the ability to refrain from violence. My hands were constantly trembling; I felt uncertain of myself and experienced many nightmares. Sometimes I suspected that I might make the general my target or that he might make me his target! I had a fear that I was on my own and would have to protect myself. Never in my life had I been in such an unpleasant situation of feeling so insecure and greedy. It brought me loneliness in the barracks in Gramos.” “I will tell you everything, my blood-brother,” she said. “I will even tell you things that up to now I could not dare tell myself, secret things that occupied my conscience in the late hours of night; dark things which I carry in my soul. Don’t doubt me. Let me finish telling you. Many times, late at night, that Tsaruhas would crawl into bed close to me and put his cold hands stinking of tobacco all over me and, as long as he was not sleeping, he would grind his rotten teeth. I would pretend that I was in a deep sleep and yell out, ‘Get lost, monster! Get lost, ogre!’ And I would tremble with anger and disgust. And then I would suddenly feel degraded, victimized. I wanted to return here for a long time, to live a human life, to experience life with you ‘wild boys’. When I am with you I feel free from the inadaptability of difficulties which life brings to a young woman (now wife) which, after being forcibly mobilized in this ‘glorious and invincible’ army, brought me to this condition.” “Up there at the top leadership,” she said, “songs, laughter, tears, life, death and love are one thing! Down here at the bottom, among the people, songs, laughter, tears, life, death, and love are another! Up there, madness rules, the madness of the throne of governance! That’s how it is up there. Up there it is mandatory that they drink ‘ouzo’ (alcoholic beverage) with ‘meze’ (appetizers), usually olives, a tradition that is practiced by senior officers, and then they drink ‘retsina’ (wine) and ‘sirtaki’. It’s a good thing I did not become a mother…” concluded Rula and stopped talking. She no longer wanted to talk about the past, about the wedding of a descent Party-Partisan. Their biggest reason for disagreement, it appears, was the twenty-five year difference in age between her and her husband. The General also forbade her from leaving her barracks (or her castle, as he called it) in Likorahi, located in the circle of barracks belonging to the high leadership. I then asked her: “Why did you seduce the General?” Rula smiled guiltily and said: “I simply seduced him to save my head because I was forced into this war. I’m kind of proud of that, but... My ancestors came to Larissa from Simi Island, where women and wealth was kept. At Simi Island, my grandmother used to say, women enjoyed freedom very hard to find in other parts of the country.

The island was a matriarchate oasis. Women always led, even when dancing. In the marriage ritual, the groom’s grandmother forced the groom to dance like a guest in welcoming his own family. While dancing, two women would invite a man to dance and the two would exchange him while dancing. That’s how we women originating from the island are. The mother’s name always follows the name of the girl. For example I am called Rula Dzheni or Rula daughter of Dzheni. The father’s or husband’s surname is not important.” “So, ‘Tsaruhas’, the General’s surname means nothing to you?” I asked. “Well, as you can see my blood brother, it means nothing!” she replied. “I know when a woman is so easily promised, happiness is never easy, but I also know that a woman is like a flower and there is a drop of nectar for every bee,” I said. “I am stupid,” she said, “and now I am paying the price of my misfortune.” And just as her eyes were filled with tears and tears began to roll down her cheeks, I said: “Rula, tears look good on you.” She looked at me and her voice echoed in my face. She then smiled, gave me a big hug and kissed me.