Birds Without Wings (12 page)

CHAPTER 14

The Proof of Innocence (3): Mariora Returns to the Light

When the evening cooled, Polyxeni, her sisters and her friends toiled up the hill. Lydia bore candles and a flagon of red wine, and the others were bearing large baskets filled with pastries, bread and koliva, covered over with white cloth. The latter they left in the church courtyard, and then they made their way to the cemetery. On the roofs of the houses the newly arrived storks squabbled, courted, constructed nests and rattled their bills at each other, impartially confounding as usual the deathless but demonstrably false proverb that no stork will ever nest upon the roof of a Christian. High overhead a booted eagle whistled melodically as it set its course for the woody foothills of the mountains. The wild tulips of spring stood with bent heads, like cheerful but modest virgins, on the banksides, and rock roses, almost ready to flower, sprouted out of the stony earth around the orchards of olives. All day Polyxeni had been feeling eagerness, excitement and pleasure growing in her stomach, so that she began to glow inside as though she had swallowed sunlight. It was the thought of seeing her mother again after these three long years, as if her mother would be the same, and would come forth and kiss her as she used to do when Polyxeni called in on the way to the market. She had already dug up the flowers that for so long she had watered and tended faithfully, and had given them to the woman who mourned her son.

Now that the hour was drawing near, however, and the bell was ringing out sadly, she began to feel both dread and horror, horror for the obvious reason, and dread in case her dream had been a deception by the Devil or a djinn. How awful, and what a humiliation and a disaster it would be if her mother, Mariora, turned out to be guilty after all! They would have to bury her again so that Rustem Bey could not take her away and burn her. “I feel sick,” she told Lydia the Barren, as they approached the gate of the cemetery, and she leaned on her friend’s shoulder for support.
“Don’t worry,” said Lydia, “the amount you’ve been up here, washing her with tears and offering prayers, it’s impossible that even the smallest sin remains.”

“Look at all these people!” exclaimed Polyxeni. “I’ve never seen so many!” The cemetery was full of women, those in most recent mourning at the grave’s edge, so that it was almost lost in flapping black sleeves and headscarves, and those in lesser mourning forming successive outer rings of less sombre colours, extending even to the low and lopsided cemetery walls, upon which sat or sprawled the little children of the town. Outside the walls stood the solemn rows of Muslim women, who would not enter the sacred ground of the infidels, but who came anyway, to serve their sisters of the other faith. Polyxeni saw her friend Ayse, wife of Abdulhamid Hodja, and raised a hand in greeting. Ayse smiled back wanly, her face full of sympathy and concern. Of the town’s men, there were only Mariora’s three surviving sons, standing self-consciously and uneasily among the women by the grave, feeling like mackerel who have suddenly found themselves swimming with dolphins.

The crowd parted as Polyxeni, her sister and Lydia the Barren made their way to the graveside. Lydia put down her handful of small candles and the flagon of red wine. She took the spade from one of the brothers, and the other women sat nearby on the ground or on the low kerbs of graves. Some of them began to think of their own sorrows, and others felt curiously detached, as though to keep their emotion for later. Lydia bent down, removed the oil lamp and handed it to Polyxeni, who by now was feeling so nauseous with apprehension, mounting grief, suspense and excitement, that she laid the flat of her hand to her diaphragm and tried to force herself to breathe more calmly. Lydia crossed herself, rolled up her sleeves and raised the spade a few inches above the earth. There was a moment of absolute stillness, as if the world had stopped rolling in the heavens, and then a great sigh rose from the crowd as she drove the blade down and cast aside the first spitful of soil. “I can’t bear it!” cried Polyxeni suddenly, throwing herself to the ground. Lydia drove the spade into the earth again, and one of the women outside the gate broke into ululating song:

“I had a cypress in my garden,
A cypress tall,
But the north wind blew,
And my cypress fell
And my strength was broken too.”

There was another moment of silence, broken only by the metallic slicing of iron in earth, and then the woman who mourned her son felt words move inside her, both on her own and on Polyxeni’s behalf:

“Vay! Vay! Vay!
For death is the camel
The dark camel
That kneels at every door.”

Polyxeni leaned over so far to peer into the grave that Lydia had to push her gently aside. Her spade rose and fell rhythmically. She was working evenly from one end to the other, and sweat was pearling on her brow. She was hoping that Mariora had not been buried too deeply, not just because of the work, but because bodies last longer when they are deeply buried. Shameful as it might be, she was also consumed with the same violent curiosity that had attracted the large attendance of the townsfolk. She felt gravesoil working its way into her shoes and settling uncomfortably and awkwardly between her toes. From time to time she paused to draw breath and wipe her forehead. Perspiration made her clothes cling to her back and to the backs of her legs. She became so absorbed in her task that she scarcely heard the several laments that were now pouring forth simultaneously from the women around, whose passions were transporting them all the more strongly as the spade cut deeper and the heap of ochre soil rose:

“You are better off than me, even grieving,
You eat in the daylight and sleep on high …
Pour water, dissolve these silken threads
With which you sewed my eyes.
I want to see you. Pour water …
I wept for you but the tears burned
And now my face is black … …
Pour water …
I placed a pretty partridge in the black earth
But took out rotten quinces,
I planted a rose
And harvested bones …
… I want to see …
Where is our gold and silver?
All is shadow and dust and damp wood …
… Dissolve these silken threads …
I looked down and I understood.
I said “Who is she that was queen?
Who was a soldier?
Who was poor?
Who is the righteous?
Who has sinned? …
… You are better off than me …
Give me a window for the birds,
For the nightingales,
For me to see the new leaves,
For the children to talk …
… Now my face is black …
I’m afraid,
For now I hear the shovel’s thunder,
I hear the ring of the hoe …
… Where is our gold and silver? …
You gave me kisses like honey,
But the last kiss was poison and bitter,
And so was your leaving,
I kissed you, I bent over and kissed you,
I tasted the grief on your lips …
… Give me a window for the birds …
Bid farewell to these narrow streets,
Your little feet will never walk on them again …
She is married to Charos,
Rise up,
Your daughter is waiting …
… Give me a window for the birds …
Tell me, beloved, how did Charos receive you?
Charos the Huntsman, dressed in black,
Charos with the black horse,
He sits on my knees, his head on my chest,
When hungry he eats from my body,
When thirsty he drinks from my eyes …
… Give me a window for the birds … pour water …
Rise up,
Your daughter is waiting.
… I ask only a window for the birds.”

Polyxeni trembled, unable to sing at all. She crouched by the side of the grave, watching the spade’s work, reaching down and picking out handfuls of soil, which she crumbled and let rain from between her fingers. She raised one handful to her nose and inhaled deeply, as if she might scent the absorption of her mother’s flesh. From time to time she uttered inarticulate little exclamations, and Lydia would say, “Sing, sister, try to sing, it will unlock your heart.” Suddenly, one of her sisters who was squatting at the other side of the grave pointed, saying, “Look!”

Lydia stopped. She followed the line of the pointing finger, and saw the first dark brown moist fibres of rotted wood, and the blacker shade of the earth. She laid aside the spade and took up the olivewood spatula that one of Polyxeni’s brothers handed to her. “The skull first,” advised an old woman, as if Lydia did not know by now how these things were done. She began to delve carefully, and felt the implement come into contact with something hard but hollow. She scraped the soil aside, and exposed the bone just above one eye socket. Working gently, she cleared the earth all around, brushing at the relics with her fingers. Polyxeni’s brothers and sisters leaned over and tossed white flowers into the grave. Lydia the Barren crossed herself, and then, very solicitously, she lifted the skull. She wiped the clagged earth off it with her fingers, loosening it from the eye sockets and shaking it out. She lifted the jawbone out of the grave, wiped that with her fingers, pushed a loosened tooth back into its bed, and located the jaw into the skull, which she then laid on a white cloth. Reverently, she held the head before her at eye level, and noted the gapped and honey-blackened teeth that were all that could be said to be reminiscent of the living Mariora. All the singing ceased. In its place there rose a wild and dreadful keening, an animal sound that could have been a herd of wounded beasts immolated in a burning wilderness. It was as if the women had expected to see Mariora as she was before. Lydia kissed the skull upon the forehead, and placed a coin upon the cloth. Finally she handed it to Polyxeni, saying, “You have received her well.”

Polyxeni was overwhelmed. She touched it three times to her forehead, kissed it fervently and held the dead bone to her cheek as if it were her living mother. Her face contorted with sobs. Her younger sister, equally wrought, struggled to take it away from her, but she clutched on to it fiercely, exclaiming “Alimono! Alimono! Maalesef! Maalesef!”

Finally she mastered herself, and relinquished her hold. She had devotedly embroidered a white scarf in the preceding month, and this she wrapped around the head, so that it looked like nothing so much as death’s
mockery of a living woman. She too placed a coin on the cloth, and then allowed the skull to be passed from hand to hand. She wanted them all to see it so that everyone would know that Mariora had been innocent in her life. The women took the skull and philosophised:

“It doesn’t matter what you do, we all come to this …” “This is how my mother will be too, one day she’ll die and be exhumed, and this is all there’ll be …” “Day becomes night …” “Ah, if only these bones could speak and bring us news …” “We are like candles that burn in an hour …” “Even the God of Death is scared of death …” “Where are all her troubles now? …” “Death is the veil over all things …” “What use is money and a good house after all? …”

Polyxeni made her way through the crowd and lifted Philothei off the wall. “Come and welcome your grandmother,” she said, leading the child to the graveside. “Look, she is coming back to see the light for the last time, and get the weight of earth from her chest.” Philothei held her mother’s hand and peered down as, bone by bone, Mariora rose from the grave. The little girl could hardly work out what to think, except that she knew that this was more serious than anything she had ever seen before. She was more fascinated and amazed than horrified, and looked up at her mother in perplexity before casting her eyes down, watching, biting her lip as Lydia lifted out the ribs one by one and placed them neatly on the white cloth that she had laid out at the side of the pit. Philothei could not make any connection between these light, soil-encrusted bones, and the woman whose face and voice she remembered but dimly, but whose affection and generosity had already entered into the annals of family myth.

Lydia toiled on, ignoring the stream of advice: “Don’t forget to count the bones …” “… don’t break anything …” “… there are some bones from the hand over there, look, the little ones, don’t lose them …” “… there was a gold ring …” “… there was a silver cross …” “… take out the feet bones before the leg bones, and that way you won’t lose them …”

When the remains were perhaps half exhumed, there was a buzz in the crowd, and all faces turned towards the gate, for there stood Rustem Bey. His hair and moustache were freshly oiled, his cheeks were recently shaved, his bearing was proud, his scarlet fez was well brushed, his boots were gleaming with new polish, and in his sash he carried his silver-handled pistols, his yataghans and the knife that he had taken from Selim. There was a deep silence. Suddenly he strode forward, knowing with
unthought certainty that everyone would step aside and make way. He stopped by the graveside with an abruptness and precision that was almost military, and looked down intently at the bones.