Levkas Man (29 page)

He paused, breathing heavily, and his eyes slowly shifted from the horizon to my face. ‘I once asked a great Swedish painter, a man who had travelled widely and who had lived, like I have, amongst peasant communities in many parts of the world, whether he thought we were a rogue species, and he looked at me, his blue eyes cold and full of dreadful certainty: “But of course,” he said. And yet there's good as well as evil. I know that. The old Devil and the old God—Sade's doctrine and Christ's. And when I look at you I am reminded of Ruth. Your mother was artistic, cultured, the sweet goodness of mankind personified. And when I was with her my soul had no evil in it, none at all. So stay with me, Paul. For Christ's sake stay with me.' And he added, on a lighter note. ‘My own mother was Irish, you know. Celt and Boer—it's like mixing the grape and the grain.' He reached for the lamp and I gave it to him, and he stood there for a moment, holding it in his hands, then he put it back in the tent.

‘That man Barrett,' he said, straightening up, his voice suddenly practical. ‘He's an underwater diver. And that's a chance I'll never get again if you could only talk him into it.'

‘Into what?' I asked him.

‘This cave.' He had turned and was looking back at the dark shadow below the overhang. ‘It wasn't tunnelled out by the flow of an underground river. It's like Rouffignac, a sea cavern. In Rouffignac there are over a hundred
gravures
of mammoths. If I could get into the lower galleries here …' He picked up his anorak and slipped it on, still talking, urgently, intently, about some theory he had that the whole great circle formed by the heights of Levkas, Meganisi, Kalomo and the mainland was the rim of a huge crater invaded by the sea after a volcanic explosion even more violent than that of Santorin. ‘I never believed in Atlantis. The continent that disappeared beyond the Pillars of Hercules is nonsense—an error due to the story having emanated from Egypt, It was the Minoan civilization—“far to the west” from the Egyptian point of view—that was destroyed when Santorin was blown to pieces, their fleet sunk, their cities and their fertile plains drowned by huge tidal waves. And if the Santorin eruption could do that, why not here, with the level of the water altered, the old cave entrance drowned? Much further back, of course—ten thousand, maybe even fifteen thousand years ago.'

And he went on to talk of the geological formation, volcanic rock overlying limestone, and the Central Mediterranean fault, running up through Pantelleria, Etna, Vulcano, Stromboli, branching off to the Ionian Isles. ‘Every year, in the hot weather, there are earth tremors here—in Levkas, Ithaca and Cephalonia in particular. Every so often there is an earthquake. Ithaca lost a thousand dead in 1953. They still talk of that earthquake on Meganisi. It did little damage there, but in Ithaca and Cephalonia whole towns and villages had to be rebuilt. When you get back to your boat, you look at the chart—you'll see it then, the great crater circle formed by Levkas, Meganisi and the mainland mountains.'

He led me to the edge of the platform, clear of the overhang, so that we could see toe stars and the whole shadowy vista of sea and islands. ‘Suppose I'm right,' he said, his hand gripping my arm. Then all to the south of us was dry land, all that area of sea we're looking at now was one vast plain full of game. Pygmy elephant, lynx and ibex, hippopotamus even. And then with the last Ice Age, reindeer and the woolly rhinoceros, to be replaced as the ice receded by bison, the first cattle, small horses, a whole new breed of animals. And if this were part of a more general cataclysm, then perhaps this is the Flood—not rain, but inundation by the sea.' He laughed, excited now, his imagination running away with him. ‘Picture it for yourself, this vast plain stretching away to what is now the Western Desert, a grazing ground for all the animals whose bones we have found in Africa. And amongst them, primitive man, standing erect, weapons in his hands—the jaw-bones of hyenas, deer-leg clubs, stones—hunting, killing, evolving all the time, and fascinated, like any child or ape today, by the holes in the rocks, the caves left by an earlier sea period. In those caves he searched for his first primitive god—a goddess, in fact—the Earth Goddess, to whom he owed his whole animate being. What more natural than that he should seek her in the bowels of the earth, offering propitiation, paying tribute to his wizard priests and in return having his next meal drawn on the rock canvas with his own weapons stuck in the beast's guts to ensure a successful hunt.'

The stillness of the night, the calm sea running away to the blink of that distant light, and the old man's voice conjuring a strange primeval world. Was it fantasy, the idea that this had all been land long, long ago? But listening to him, speaking, now that he had sea and land to point to, in a way that he had never done when I was a kid, vividly and with extraordinary intensity, it didn't seem to matter. To him, at any rate, it was real. Convinced himself, he came near to convincing me.

‘Paul!' Sonia's voice, calling to me out of the darkness, broke the spell. ‘I thought maybe you'd lost your way,' she said quickly, apologetically, conscious that she had broken in upon a moment of intimacy between us.

He saw us down to the boat, silent now, declining my offer of a night in comfort on board
Coromandel
. He was anxious to start work on that rock fall at first light, convinced he would break through at any moment to the gallery beyond. ‘Don't forget,' he said. ‘Ask Barrett if he'll do an underwater survey of the area.'

I nodded, sitting on the thwart and looking up at him as he stood balanced on a rock, a dark outline against the stars. ‘That means anchoring here. What's the holding like?'

He hadn't thought of that. He didn't know what the bottom was like or whether there was any current moving through the channel. ‘It depends on the weather,' I said and started to tell him how exposed the boat would be. But at that moment Pappadimas started the outboard and the noise of it drowned my voice, beating back and forth between the rock planes that formed the sides of the channel.

Later that evening, sitting in the saloon with a drink in my hand, I found it quite impossible to convey to Bert the extraordinary sense of reality conjured by the old man's words. For that you needed to be standing on that promontory below the cave's overhang looking out across the flat plain of the sea, dim under the stars. But though to Bert the land-bridge theory was a lot of visionary nonsense, the cave was real enough, the prospect of discovering something of antiquity below the sea a lure, a challenge. ‘If it weren't for those damned packages of Borg's …' He was torn between the urge to make an interesting dive and the desire to clear for Pantelleria and get shot of his unwelcome cargo. In the event, we did neither, the weather deciding for us. We were up in the early hours laying out a kedge, and all next morning we rode to two anchors with a gale from the north-west driving a steep scend into the inlet.

That evening, with the weather moderating, a caique came in loaded with vegetables from Corfu, and when we went ashore after dark, Zavelas told us Holroyd had arrived. He also told us that the Russian fleet was reported to be patrolling south of Rhodes, that the Israelis had launched a series of Commando raids against missile emplacements on the west side of the Suez Canal and that Egypt was appealing to the Security Council. He had a little Japanese transistor set on the table in front of him. ‘There is also a rumour that Turkey may mobilize. They are already concentrating more troops on the Anatolian coast opposite Cyprus and along the shores of the Black Sea.' The wind was dying now, the night quiet except for the radio, a woman's voice singing a Greek song.

Vassilios was bringing his boat into the quay. I waited, sipping my ouzo and watching for Holroyd. And when he came I got up and walked to meet him on the quay.

He stopped when he saw me, his head lowered like a bull on the defensive. He looked older, less cocky, a hunch to his shoulders. ‘Well, young man?' He stood with his legs braced as though still feeling the movement of the sea, his head thrust forward. ‘What do you want?'

‘Where are you going?' I asked him. ‘To your dig at Tiglia?'

‘Where else?'

‘I thought you might be going out to see my father.'

‘Later. That'll come later.' And he added, his eyes narrowing so that the creases running back from the corners were very pronounced, ‘You were in on it, were you? You knew what he was up to—wasting public money, making a fool of me. And with what object? Can you tell me that?' The anger was building up in him. ‘Thought he'd get rid of me. Is that it? A clear field whilst he worked on the cave that really mattered. Well? Well, haven't you got anything to say?'

‘I know nothing about it.'

‘Well, if you won't talk I'll have to have it out with Van der Voort.'

‘You leave him alone,' I said. I could see the old man now, his big hands opening and clenching. There'd be murder if Holroyd tried to interfere with him. ‘Stick to Tiglia or go off and find some dig of your own. But don't cross the channel to where my father is working.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because he'll kill you if you do.'

I saw his eyes widen and he stood there, staring at me for a moment. And then without another word he went past me to the boat and Vassilios helped him in. The outboard roared and they slid away from the quay, out into the calm waters of the inlet, the light fading, everything still. I stood there, watching until they were out of sight, wondering what was going to happen. And then I turned to find Sonia standing a few yards away.

‘He mustn't worry Dr Van der Voort,' she said in a small, tense voice. ‘Did you tell him that?'

‘Of course I did.' I was angry at her for stating the obvious, angry with myself for yielding to a compulsion I did not understand. And as I stood there, facing her, I was remembering the sense of something altogether evil I had felt up there alone with him the previous night.

She took my arm suddenly, her fingers gripping tight. ‘What is it?' she asked. ‘You're trembling.'

But I couldn't tell her what it was, for I didn't know myself. ‘Do you remember those photographs Dr Gilmore brought with him to Amsterdam? The second one—he was holding something in his hand. A stone lamp, Gilmore said. D'you remember? What did they use a stone lamp for?'

‘The ancients?'

‘Yes, the ancients.' It was a strange, archaic word to use. ‘Was there something special about a stone lamp?'

‘No, of course not.' She said it briskly. ‘They had to see and it was the only lamp they knew—a hollowed stone with animal fat and the wick floating in it. Isn't that what the Eskimos use?'

‘Probably.'

She left me shortly afterwards and I rowed off to the boat. I needed a drink, a good stiff drink.

I was on my second Scotch when the Barretts came off in Zavelas's boat. They were very subdued. Even Florrie. They'd made up their minds. They wanted to clear for Pylos in the morning, and once through the channel, head direct for Pantelleria.

‘Without going to Pylos to hand in our transit-log?'

‘Yes,' Bert said. And his wife nodded. ‘It's dangerous here.' They were thinking of the cargo we carried. I was thinking of Holroyd and my father.

‘Zavelas is suspicious. I think he knows something.'

So they had felt it, too. ‘Okay,' I said. All day, whilst we had been cooped up on board waiting for the weather to moderate, we had talked of little else, chewing it over with the intensity of people who have no means of getting away from each other. And now that they had finally made up their minds, I knew there was no shifting them. Like most easy-going men, Bert could be very obstinate once he had been forced to a decision.

‘We can always plead stress of weather, an engine breakdown, something like that,' he said. ‘The regulations allow for that, provided I post the transit-log back to the port of entry and give the reason for not clearing foreign.'

I nodded. We'd be in the clear then to come back if I could wring enough money out of Borg. ‘So long as we stop in the Channel—I'd like to have a word with my father before we leave.'

‘Of course. But I'm not making a dive.' And Florrie added, ‘Zavelas warned us about that. If Bert dives, then they'd have to examine the boat to make certain he hadn't lifted some archæological treasures off the bottom.' I knew that, but I had thought that in a little place like this … ‘A pity,' I said and left it at that. It was no use arguing with them.

We had supper then, and afterwards I took the dinghy and rowed ashore to say goodbye to Sonia. I still had some drachmas and I wanted to leave the money with her. It would be just enough to keep him going for a month or two the way he was living and I wasn't certain he'd take it from me.

It was very hot ashore, a preternatural stillness hanging over the little port. Zavelas was no longer at the kaféneion, but the proprietor sent his daughter with me to show me the house. She was about fourteen, a bright, dark-eyed girl shyly conscious of the fact that she was just emerging from the puppy-fat stage. Her short, white frock, immaculately laundered, gleamed in the dark. It was a breathless, suffocating night, no stars and the air hanging heavy. By the time we reached the house my shirt was sticking to my back. ‘Spiti Zavelas,' she said, and with a quick smile and a swirl of her skirt she was gone, still looking as fresh as when we started.

Zavelas opened the door to me himself. ‘Come in, fella.' And he showed me in to a ground-floor room that was like a stage version of a Victorian parlour. ‘So you're leaving in the morning, and now you want to see the Dutch girl, eh?' He was smiling, not quite a leer, but as near as dammit. ‘Well, you're welcome.' He left me and I heard him calling to Sonia up the stairs.

There were lace antimacassars on the chairs, bric-à-brac everywhere, and the walls crowded with photographs—group pictures mainly of cops and sailors and loggers. An English Parliament clock showed the time as nine forty-seven. I was still wondering where that had come from when the door opened behind me and I turned to find Sonia standing there. No puppy-fat on her and her face looking hot and strained. ‘Mr Zavelas has told me. You're leaving in the morning.'