Read Online Report to Grego by Nikos Kazantzakis - Free Book Online Page B

proceed in silence between the tombs.
    â€œKeep quiet. You’ll see in a minute. Follow me.”
    Turning behind the church, we heard conversation. Five or six women dressed in black were standing around a grave. Two men lifted the tombstone, then one of them stepped into the grave and began to dig. We went close and stood by the open pit.
    â€œWhat are they doing?” I asked.
    â€œDisinterring the bones.”
    â€œWhat bones?”
    â€œYou’ll see in a minute.”
    The priest had placed himself at the head of the grave, where he swung the censer up and down and murmured prayers under his breath. I leaned over the newly dug soil. Mold, putrefaction; I pinched my nostrils. Though I felt sick to my stomach, I did not go away. I waited. Bones? What bones? I kept asking myself, and I waited.
    Suddenly the man who was bent over and digging stood upstraight. His torso emerged above the pit. In his hands he held a skull. He cleaned the dirt off it, inserting his finger and pushing the mud out of the eye cavities, then placed it on the lip of the grave, leaned over again, and recommenced his digging.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked my uncle, trembling from fright.
    â€œCan’t you see? It’s a dead person’s head. A skull.”
    â€œWhose?”
    â€œDon’t you remember her? It’s our neighbor Annika’s.”
    â€œAnnika’s!”
    I burst into tears and began to howl.
    â€œAnnika’s! Annika’s!” I cried. Throwing myself on the ground, I grabbed all the stones I could find and started to hurl them at the gravedigger.
    Wailing and lamenting, I screamed how beautiful she was, how beautiful she smelled! She used to come to our house, place me on her knees and comb my curls with the comb she removed from her hair. She used to tickle me under the arms, and I giggled, I peeped like a bird.
    My uncle took me in his arms, carried me off a little ways, and spoke to me angrily. “Why are you crying? What did you expect? She died. We’re all going to die.”
    But I was thinking of her blond hair, her large eyes, the red lips which used to kiss me. And now . . .
    â€œAnd her hair,” I shrieked, “her lips, her eyes? . . .”
    â€œGone, gone. The earth ate them.”
    â€œWhy, why? I don’t want people to die!”
    My uncle shrugged his shoulders. “When you grow up, you’ll find out why.”
    I never did find out. I grew up, became old, and never did find out.

5
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
    W ITH MY EVER-MAGIC EYE , my buzzing bee- and honey-filled mind, a red woolen cap on my head and sandals with red pompons on my feet, I set out one morning, half delighted, half dismayed. My father held me by the hand; my mother had given me a sprig of basil (I was supposed to gain courage by smelling it) and hung my golden baptismal cross around my neck.
    â€œGod’s blessings upon you, and my blessings too,” she murmured, looking at me proudly.
    I was like a small sacrificial victim weighted down with ornaments. Within me I felt both pride and fear, but my hand was wedged deeply in my father’s grasp, and I bore myself with manly courage. We marched and marched through the narrow lanes, reached Saint Minas’s, turned, and entered an old building with a wide courtyard. Four great rooms occupied the corners and a dustcovered plane tree the middle. I hesitated, turning coward; my hand had begun to tremble in the large warm palm.
    Bending over, my father touched my hair and patted me. I gave a start, for as far as I could remember, this was the first time he had ever caressed me. Lifting my eyes, I glanced at him fearfully. He saw that I was afraid and withdrew his hand.
    â€œYou’re going to learn to read and write here so you can become a man,” he said. “Cross yourself.”
    The teacher appeared in the doorway. He was holding a long switch and seemed like a savage to me, a savage with huge