Fillets of Plaice, by Gerald Durrell (4 page)

We joined several tables together, placed chairs around them and sat down. The groups of men who, contrary to Larry's expectations, outnumbered us by about five to one, continued to sit there silently, gazing at us as impassively as lizards. After waiting for some considerable time, making rather haphazard conversation, an elderly man shuffled out of the cafe and came with obvious reluctance to our table. By now thoroughly unnerved, we all said
kalimera
in unison with various degrees of nervous enthusiasm. To our infinite relief, he said
kalimera
back.

“Now,” said Mactavish, who rather prided himself on his command of the Greek language, “we'll have a little drink and some
meze
.”

It should have been unnecessary for him to add the request for
meze
, for this includes things like olives, nuts, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, cheese, and similar little plates which, if you ordered a drink in Greece, were automatically served. But it seemed in the circumstances that even an ex-Mountie was beginning to become slightly rattled.

“Yes,” said the cafe owner gravely. “What drink would you require?”

Mactavish took orders for our drinks, which ranged from ginger beer through ouzo to brandy and retsina. He translated all this to the cafe owner.

“I have only red wine,” said the cafe owner.

An exasperated look spread across Mactavish's face.

“Well then, bring us red wine and
meze
,” he said.

The cafe owner gave a little nod of his head and shuffled back to the interior of his gloomy little shop.

“Now why,” asked Mactavish, “should he ask me what we wanted to drink when he knew perfectly well he'd only got red wine?”

Mactavish loved the Greeks dearly and had taken the trouble to speak their language quite fluently, but he could never quite come to terms with their logic.

“It's perfectly obvious,” said Larry exasperatedly. “He wanted to find out what you wanted to drink and if you had wanted red wine he would have gone and got it for you.”

“Yes, but why not just say he's got red wine in the first place and nothing else?”

“But that doesn't happen in Greece,” Larry explained patiently. “It's too logical.”

We sat at our table with all those inimical eyes fastened on us, feeling rather like a group of actors on a stage who had all simultaneously forgotten their lines. Presently the old man shuffled out, carrying a battered tin tray which bore upon it, for some obscure reason, a portrait of Queen Victoria. He placed on the table some little plates of small black olives and chunks of white goat cheese, two flagons of wine and a series of glasses that, although clean, were so chipped and worn with use that they looked as though they could give you any one of a number of interesting diseases.

“They do not seem very happy in dis village,” observed Max.

“What do you expect?” said Donald. “Lot of damned foreigners. Now, if this were England it would be different.”

“Yes,” said Larry sarcastically, “we'd be doing Morris dancing with them in next to no time.”

Although the concentrated stare our male audience had not really changed, it had now in our nervous state begun to look positively malevolent.

“Music,” said Sven, “it soothes the savage beast. I will play you a tune.”

“Well, for God's sake, play something cheerful,” said Larry. “If you start playing Bach to them I can see them all going and getting their muzzle-loaders.”

Sven hitched his accordion into position and played a very charming little polka which should have softened any Greek's heart. But our audience remained unmoved though it seemed as though there was a slight lessening of tension in the air.

“I really do think that Margo, Leonora and I ought to go back to the boat,” said Mother.

“No, no, my dear Mrs Durrell,” said Mactavish, “I assure you I know this situation so well. It takes time for these primitive people to adapt themselves to you. And now, since Sven's music has had no effect, I think the tune has come for magic.”

“Magic?” said Theodore, leaning forward and gazing at Mactavish intensely, deeply interested. “How do you mean, magic?”

“Conjuring,” said Mactavish. “In my spare time I'm a bit of a conjuror.”

“Dear God,” groaned Larry. “why not give them strings of beads?”

“Oh, do shut up, Larry,” hissed Margo. “Mactavish knows what he's doing.”

“Well, I'm glad
you
think so,” said Larry.

Mactavish strode off purposefully into the cafe and reappeared with a plate on which were four eggs. He placed these carefully on the table and stood back so the silent audience of villagers could observe.

“Now,” he said, gesticulating in a professional conjurer's manner, “my first trick is the egg trick. May I borrow some sort of receptacle from one of you?”

“A handkerchief?” inquired Donald.

“No,” said Mactavish, giving a glance at his audience of villagers. “I think something a little more spectacular. Mrs Durrell, would you be kind enough to lend me your hat?”

Mother, during the summer months, used to wear a large straw hat that, in view of her minuteness, made her look somewhat like an animated mushroom.

“I don't want egg all over it,” she said.

“No, no, I assure you,” said Mactavish, “there's no danger.”

Reluctantly, Mother removed her straw hat and handed it to Mactavish. With a great flourish he placed it on the table in front of him, glanced up to make sure the villagers were watching, took an egg and placed it carefully in the hat. Then he squeezed the brim together and gave it a resounding blow on the side of the table.

“If we save all the bits,” said Larry, “I suppose we could have an omelette.”

Mactavish, however, unfurled the hat and displayed it to us in such a way that the villagers could see that it was completely empty and egg-less. He then took a second egg and did precisely the same thing and again the hat was empty and egg-less. As he did the same again with the third egg I saw animation starting to creep into the eyes of our village audience, and after the fourth egg one or two of the men were actually exchanging whispered remarks. Then, with great flamboyance, Mactavish showed us all the completely empty and egg-less hat and showed it also to the villagers. He then placed it on the table and folded up the brim once more, then opened it and with perfect timing took out four absolutely intact eggs and placed them on the plate.

Even Larry was impressed. Of course, it was a simple job of what conjurers call palming; that is to say, you appear to put a thing into something, whereas in actual fact it is in your hand and you conceal it on some part of your anatomy. I had seen it done with watches and other objects but I had never seen it done quite so skilfully with four eggs, which are, after all difficult to conceal and are the easiest things to break during such a trick, thus spoiling the whole effect.

Mactavish bowed to our solemn clapping and, to our great astonishment, there were even a few desultory claps from the villagers. Some of the older men, in fact, who had slightly defective eyesight switched tables with the younger ones so that they were closer to us.

“You see what I mean?” said Mactavish proudly. “Little bit of magic works wonders.”

He then produced from his pocket a pack of cards and proceeded to go through the normal routine that conjurers use with cards, flourishing them up in the air so that they landed on his hand and spread out along his arm without a single card failing. The villagers were now really excited and from sitting on the opposite side of the square from us, they had now converged on us. The old men with defective eyesight had in fact become so intrigued that they had moved their chairs forward until they were almost sitting at our table.

It was obvious that Mactavish was enjoying himself immensely. He put an egg into his mouth, scrunched it up and then opened his mouth wide to show that there was no egg there and produced it from his shirt pocket. Now there came a hearty round of applause from the villagers.

“Isn't he clever!” said Margo.

“I told you he was alright,” said Leslie, “and he's a damned good pistol shot, too.”

“I must ask him how he does these, um…, illusions,” said Theodore.

“I wonder if he knows how to saw a woman in half,” said Larry thoughtfully, “I mean, so that you could get the half that functions but doesn't talk.”

“Larry dear,” said Mother, “I do wish you wouldn't say things like that in front of Gerry.”

Now came Mactavish's big moment. The front row of the village audience consisted entirely of old men with long white beards, and the younger men were standing in the background craning their necks to watch his tricks. Mactavish strode forward to the oldest of the old men, who must surely have been the mayor of the village since we had noticed he had been given a special place of honour so that he could see the tricks more clearly. Mactavish stood there for a moment with his hands up, fingers spread wide, and said in Greek,

“I will now show you another trick.”

Swiftly, he reached down and produced from the old man's beard a drachma and threw the silver-coloured coin on the ground. There was a gasp of astonishment from the assembled company. Then, having raised his arms and spread his fingers wide once more, he reached into the other side of the old man's beard and produced a five-drachma piece, which he again, with a flourish, threw on the ground.

“Now,” said Mactavish in Greek, holding up his hands once more, you ye seen how I have produced by magic this money from the mayor's beard…”

“Can you produce more?” inquired the mayor in a quavering voice.

“Yes, yes,” came a chorus of villagers, “can you produce more?”

“I will see what my magic can do,” said Mactavish, by now completely carried away.

In rapid succession he produced from the mayor's beard a whole series of ten-drachma coins, which he threw on the mounting pile on the ground. In those days Greece was so poverty stricken that the shower of silver Mactavish was producing out of the mayor's beard represented a small fortune.

It was at that point that Mactavish over-reached himself He produced from the mayor's beard a fifty-drachma note. The “ah's” of excitement were almost deafening. Encouraged by this, Mactavish produced four more fifty-drachma notes. The mayor sat there entranced. Periodically he would whisper a blessing to one or another of the many saints who he felt were producing this miracle.

“I think, you know,” said Theodore in a tentative tone of voice, “it would be perhaps advisable not to produce any more.”

But Mactavish was too flushed with enthusiasm to realise the danger. He produced several one hundred-drachma notes from the mayor's beard and the applause was deafening.

“Now,” he said, “for my final trick,” and he held up his hands once more to show that they were empty. He bent down and plucked from the mayor's beard a bunch of 500-drachma notes.

The amount of money that was now lying at the mayor's feet represented something like ten or fifteen pounds which, to the average peasant anywhere in Greece, was a fortune beyond the dreams of avarice.

“There,” said Mactavish, turning and smiling at us proudly, “it never fails.”

“You certainly have got them in a very good mood,” said Mother, who was by now completely relaxed.

“I told you not to worry, Mrs Durrell,” said Mactavish.

Then he made his fatal mistake. He bent down, picked up all the money lying on the ground and put it in his pocket.

Immediate uproar broke out.

“I, um…, I had a sort of feeling this might happen,” said Theodore.

The mayor had risen shakily to his feet and was shaking his fist in Mactavish's face. Everybody else was shouting as indignantly as a disturbed rookery.

“But what's the matter?” asked Mactavish.

“You're stealing my money,” said the mayor.

“I think,” said Larry to Mother, “that now is the time for you, Leonora and Margo to get back to the boat.”

They left the table with alacrity and disappeared down the main street at a dignified trot.

“But what do you mean,
your
money?” Mactavish was saying earnestly to the mayor, “It was
my
money.”

“How could it be your money if you found it in my beard?” asked the mayor.

Once again, Mactavish was defeated by the illogicality of the Greeks.

“But don't you see,” he said painfully, “it was only magic? It was really my money.”

“NO!” came a chorus from the entire village, “If you found the money in
his
beard it's
his
money.”

“But can't you see,” said Mactavish desperately, “that I was doing tricks ? It's all tricks.”

“Yes, and the trick is to steal my money!” said the mayor.

“YES!” came a rumbled agreement from the assembled population.

“Do you know,” said Mactavish, turning desperately to Larry, “I think this old boy's senile. He can't see the point,”

“You really are a bloody fool, you know,” said Larry. “Obviously, he thinks that if you got the money out of his beard it's his money.”

“But it's not,” said Mactavish obtusely. “It's
my
money. I palmed it.”

“
We
know that, you fool, but
they
don't.”

We were now surrounded by a throng of wild-looking and extremely indignant members of the community who were determined to see that justice was done to their mayor.

“Give him back his money,” they all shouted, “or we'll stop your benzina from leaving!”

“We'll send to Athens for the police!” shouted one man.

As it would have taken several weeks to communicate with Athens and several weeks for a policeman to come back and investigate the thing — if, indeed, one was ever sent — the whole situation was taking on alarming proportions.

“I think, um…,” said Theodore, “the best thing would be for you to give him the money.”

“That's what I have always said about foreigners,” said Donald. “Excitable. Rapacious, too. Just like Max here who is always borrowing money from me and never paying it back.”

“Now do not let us start to quarrel too,” said Max. “Dere is enough quarrel here for everybody.”