Crete by Barry Unsworth

Author:Barry Unsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2004-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

Aptera: a Roman cistern

We searched for traces of fresco painting on the patches of plaster still remaining on the ruinous walls of the Byzantine monastery dedicated to St. John the Theologian. There seemed to be an orangey or ochreous streak here and there, some configuration that might indicate human likeness, human intention. Inveterate, this habit of seeking our own image everywhere. But it is time and decay that have made these marks; they have beauty but no design—or none that we could recognize.

Rethymnon, capital of the province of the same name, is the next town of any size eastward on the road that runs practically the whole length of the island from Kissamou to Sitia, linking all the coastal areas. The principal cities and most of the beach resorts are situated on this north coast.

It’s a good road, a lot of it of recent construction, well marked and well surfaced, easily the best road on the island. All the same, we drove warily along it. On Cretan roads the incongruous and unexpected—elements generally present—require a high level of alertness. Someone might be dragging a handcart loaded with oranges, or crossing the road with buckets in a quest for water. Bypass roads are almost nonexistent, and you shift abruptly from the speed and freedom of the open road to a seaside street with shops and bars and parked cars and people in beach dress wandering about, then out again, just as abruptly, with ranks of mountains on one side and the glittering reaches of the Aegean on the other. Also slightly unnerving is the general use of the hard shoulder as a second lane. There should be two lanes, really, on either side, to cope with the volume of traffic, which increases dramatically in the summer. Perhaps the money was lacking for such a large-scale project; the cliffs come down sheer in many places, and there is not much space between them and the shore. However that may be, the hard shoulder, which is narrow when there is one at all, and sometimes strewn with broken stones or the debris of ancient picnics, and which we are conditioned to think of as for emergency use only, is generally regarded by Cretans—who totally lack this conditioning—as an extra lane. Drivers wanting to overtake will sound their horns to make you get over, and they will quickly become angry if you fail to do so.

Cretan driving habits have a quality all their own, which must be seen to be appreciated. It is not self-righteous or unmannerly or neurotically impatient. There is a sort of proud carelessness about it, lordly and dangerous. The quality is best summed up by the Greek word palikari, which has no real equivalent in English. The palikari is the hero, the freedom fighter, the patriot. He goes back centuries to the days of Turkish occupation, when he took to the mountains and became an outlaw and fought a guerilla war against the oppressor in which no quarter was shown on either side.

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