Smyrna in Flames, a Novel by Homero Aridjis

Author:Homero Aridjis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mandel Vilar Press

“Take that corridor and don’t look back. Turkish agents have surrounded the Greek quarter; they have come in army trucks; you’re a marked man.” Calliope appeared by his side. “There’s a secret door in the kitchen. Don’t make a sound, and throw that pistol away; it’s empty.”

“Can you tell me where Eurydice is?”

“I’ll let her know.”

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Nicias heard a Turk shouting outside. The sound of running feet.

“You go ahead. I’ll wait for Eurydice,” said Calliope as she disappeared.

Birds were fluttering in the kitchen, knocking against the windows. Inside a cage with twisted bars other, charred, birds lay, the kind the residents of Smyrna were fond of eating in the hunting season. Nicias fell ravenously on the chicken wings and feet he found in a skillet. He chewed stale bread from one of the Greek bakeries closed by order of the Turks. Glancing outside he saw injured people in the rubble, dead bodies on the ground. He could jump out of that window if danger threatened. The Turkish agents’ truck disappeared around the corner. He watched tensely for its return.

Just then Eurydice stepped from a secret room. Her hair was loose and her eyes were shining, her body half naked. She took his arm.

“My soul desires you more ardently than ever … not even when together we plowed the watery main … did I burn as I do now to love you and make you mine,” he said to her in Homeric words. And drew her toward the bed. And she followed her lover.

Their clothing discarded, each reveled in the other, the memory of past encounters blending into the fresh contact of caresses and curves, kisses and compulsions. Urgency merged with serenity.

“These instants that seem hours yield joy in the midst of hell, a wave of tenderness among explosions, a brief interruption of the catastrophe. But where are you, Eurydice? Is it truly you who is loving me? Are you truly her?” As Nicias thought these things he wondered how much time the fates would grant them, how long they would be able to keep death at bay behind the door, for well he knew that the chettes were searching the Greek quarter to find and kill him.

Unable to get his fill of her, Nicias regarded the filigree of veins beneath the translucent skin, the soft breasts like a pair of trembling doves, the hair that rippled under his caress as in an old poem. Until at last he fell asleep; and woke, to find she was not there, gone from his side with mysterious stealth.

Nicias went to the window. Hundreds of men were trudging down the interminable street, their eyes fixed on nothingness. He imagined himself amongst them. A black moon appeared on the wall of the facing house. The starlings high above took the form of phantoms. He walked with the men until wrenching his body with his eyes out of the multitude of deportees.

Parties of chettes marched behind the procession, hollering tuneless patriotic songs. An explosion.

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